


Process, Not

by Clarke



Category: Destroyer - Monsta X (Music Video), Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Abduction, Alcoholism, And more Tags if I forgot any, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Cheating, College, Disordered Eating, Drug Abuse, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Epistolary, Friends With Benefits, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Making Out, Minor Violence, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Recovery, Science Fiction, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Smoking, Suicidal Idealisation, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Travel, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, one-sided, reference to suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-03-06 11:29:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18850186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clarke/pseuds/Clarke
Summary: "I don't, I don't know what I'll do without you."Kihyun—the physics department's best and brightest—is juggling his academic record, his two estranged lovers, an inhospitable family, time-travel paradoxes, and everything he's repressed when he meets Shin Hoseok—his intellectual equal, his prophesied lab partner, and his kind-eyed worst nightmare. Forced together by circumstances outside their control, and for the sake of people who may not deserve it, the two men fight tooth and nail against the horrifying realisation that they may have nothing but each other. Ultimately, the question is: Exactly who gets hit with shrapnel when you're shooting yourself?Illustrated.





	1. 1 - 1

#  **I.**

“Okay, so,” Kihyun pulls his glasses off his face and wipes the lenses with the hem of his shirt. “You understand why integrating the acceleration gives us our equation for velocity?”

He stares down the frightened sophomore while she scans her notes again. She chews her pencil and looks back up to him. “Not… really.”

Kihyun squeezes the bridge of his nose. First and foremost, he was never meant to be a tutor. He’s doing this mostly as a favour for his professor, mostly for a paycheck, and mostly as blackmail for a letter of recommendation. But being paired up with confused underclassmen who only ended up taking physics to fulfil a credit requirement is torturous.

He sighs and slips his glasses back on. “Did you take calculus?”

She nods. “Of course.”

It’s a ray of hope. Kihyun spins her notebook towards himself and aims his pencil at the corner. “Okay, so, let’s do it step by step. We know that,” he writes down the appropriate equation for acceleration, something hammered into his head and buried under a mountain of further advanced kinematics knowledge, “acceleration is just the derivative of velocity with respect to time, right?”

She blinks. “Um..”

Kihyun inhales slowly and looks back up to her. He’s going to fucking die if, nearly two months into the semester, this fresh-faced sophomore doesn’t know the first day’s lesson. “Do you know your kinematics equations?”

Her eyes light up. “Yes! I do!”

Kihyun is doubtful, so he pushes her notebook back to her. “Write them out and we’ll go from there.”

She looks relieved to have absorbed something from class, like someone who isn’t completely lost. Kihyun isn’t sure how relieved she should be. He’s watching her hand as she innocently forgets to write down an exponent when he hears one of the upper-level doors open. He glances over his shoulder and sees someone just entering the room. It’s not that surprising to see a wayward student in the lecture hall, so Kihyun doesn’t pay him a second glance.

“Time is squared in the second one,” he says softly and the sophomore looks up, confused, before looking back down and realising her mistake.

She looks up a second time. “Oh, Hoseok-oppa.”

Kihyun stares at her. He doesn’t have any ill will towards this girl, but if she doesn’t remember his name he isn’t sure she’s going to absorb anything he teaches her. Luckily, a voice responds to her from behind him.

“Hi, Dayoung,” the other student calls out in a sing-song. Kihyun looks over his shoulder to the guy who wandered in before. He’s wearing a leather jacket and tight, dark clothes, looking like he just crawled out of a motorcycle gang movie. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy cute little Dayoung would know. Kihyun bows his head at him nonetheless.

“Good afternoon,” he greets, and the gesture is returned, albeit hesitantly.

“What, um, what are you learning?” Hoseok-oppa asks, craning his neck to peek at the paper. Kihyun finds it rude.

“Physics!” Dayoung holds the notebook up to show him, three short equations and an incomplete integration. “You probably wouldn’t know anything about it.”

Hoseok giggles. “Oh yeah, I definitely don’t know anything about that,” he says, voice playful, joking. “You could have asked me to help you. I learned this stuff a while back.”

“Professor Kang asked Kihyun-sunbae to help me out personally,” she attests. “He’s in his third year of grad and he’s really smart! Right, sunbae?”

Kihyun, who’s getting annoyed at being in the middle of this sudden conversation, snorts. He doesn’t let himself puff up with pride this time. “Dayoung, are you gonna socialise or are you gonna finish writing?”

She pouts, a bit sheepish. “Sorry. We’ll have to talk later, Hoseok-oppa.”

She casts her friend a coy look before returning her attention to her notebook. Kihyun, in the meantime, looks Hoseok up and down. He knows this guy is in his Theoretical Physics class, but that’s about it. They’ve only ever really exchanged passing glances when pulling test papers from the professor’s desk, or when walking into the room at similar times, so they’re not really friends or acquaintances. In fact, they’re strangers enough that Kihyun finds it perfectly acceptable to size him up. Hoseok keeps his gaze on Dayoung a bit longer before hesitantly meeting Kihyun’s eyes.

“You’re in theoretical?” Hoseok asks. Kihyun only nods. “How did you fare on last week’s test?”

“Full marks.” Kihyun doesn’t even hesitate to brag.

Hoseok makes an impressed face. “Cool, me too,” he says, and holds his hand out. Kihyun stares him down a second longer, taking in what seems be a genuine grin, before relenting and clapping their hands together. He doesn’t exactly return the smile.

“Nice to meet you.”

  
  


#  **II.**

He starts noticing Hoseok more and more, but only because Hoseok has started noticing  _ him _ . They don’t ever really talk but Kihyun is just  _ aware _ of him, sitting two rows behind him and to the left in theoretical; walking across campus a few paces ahead of Kihyun; choking down a dry bagel at 7:20 in the morning on the way to the rec centre. He’s frustrated by this new presence in his life, especially when he has much more important things to focus on.

What makes it unbearable is the guy’s aura of friendliness. He’ll frequently go out of his way to shoot Kihyun a gentle wave and a smile. He seems like he knows everyone who’s even attempted an advanced mathematics class. Frankly, Kihyun doesn’t trust him, and makes a point to avoid his gaze or act like he didn’t even see him.

He’s relaying this information to his roommate one night while he clips his nails between finishing sections of the lab assignment on his desk. “I suddenly went from barely existing in the same space as this dude to seeing him every day,” he complains. His roommate, Minhyuk, lies on his back on the rug of their studio apartment, scrolling through his phone and barely paying attention. It doesn’t bother Kihyun. “I checked his scores the other day—”

“How,” Minhyuk interrupts.

“Professor Kang trusts me too much,” Kihyun explains. “Anyway, Shin Hoseok is batting a thousand in theoretical. Triple digits on every assignment.”

“You two should hang out,” Minhyuk suggests. “Be science nerds together.”

“He’s  _ competition,” _ Kihyun clarifies. He sweeps a nail clipping into the trash with the back of his hand. “Competition in tight jeans. I don’t want him interfering in my connections to the department. I need peers if I’m gonna figure out this whole time paradox thing.”

Minhyuk gives him an unimpressed look. “Sounds like you’re pushing a peer away.”

“I don’t  _ know _ this guy,” Kihyun hisses. “Plus, he seems nosy.”

Minhyuk thinks that that’s another thing they have in common, but doesn’t say as much.

“What do you want for dinner tomorrow, by the way?” Kihyun asks.

Minhyuk thinks for a moment. “Eh, make whatever you want.”

The answer is welcome, but unusual, and small warning flags wave in Kihyun’s head. The two preoccupy themselves in silence for a few minutes before Kihyun clears his throat.

“How’s Hyunwoo-hyung?”

Minhyuk makes a noncommittal grunt. “He’s alright. He’s sketching out a new scene but we’re having trouble with it.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Minhyuk rolls over onto his side, setting his phone down. “He spent like two hours just holding a charcoal pencil and sighing on Sunday.”

“Poor guy. It’s taking him that long, now?”

“No, I think he just likes that pace. I feel bad. I can’t be in the studio with him all the time.”

Minhyuk sighs and Kihyun smirks. “You  _ like _ him,” he teases.

Minhyuk’s eyebrows pinch together and he lies his head down onto the rug. “Worse. I  _ love _ him,” he whines.

Kihyun is more than a little surprised. “Oh. That’s new.”

“It’s not,” Minhyuk sighs again, eyes wandering to a spot on the floor. “It’s definitely not. I’ve definitely felt like this for a long time.”

Kihyun sets down his nail clippers. He should go down there, and he isn’t actively working on his lab assignment right now, so he slips off his chair, joining Minhyuk on the floor. “I honestly didn’t think you had the capacity to fall in love.”

“You’re one to talk,” Minhyuk jeers. Kihyun bristles at that, but lets it slide. He watches Minhyuk fold his arm under his cheek, squishing the edge of his mouth. “But he’s so easygoing and I like being around him so much. Even when we’re not doing anything. Even if we don’t talk for hours.”

“I do appreciate anyone who can make you not talk for hours,” Kihyun admits and Minhyuk sucks his teeth and smacks him. Kihyun laughs it off and rolls onto his back, stares at the mysterious stain on their roof. It looks like pasta sauce, but it was there when they moved in, so he can’t be sure. “You should go for it. You’re already close.”

“I’d like to, but, I can’t. Not while we’re trying to figure this out, at least.”

Kihyun understands completely. He realises that he hasn’t spoken to his own boyfriend since last weekend, and reminds himself to make an effort to at least be available to him. “Do you know how he feels?”

Minhyuk scoffs.  _ “No. _ Do you think I can read that man?”

“But Hyunwoo’s pretty simple, you could probably gauge how he—”

“He’s not simple at all,” Minhyuk shoots him a serious look that also reveals a little bit of hurt. “He’s got a lot going on. He’s… intricate. He’s just not open about it.”

Kihyun isn’t sure how to respond, so he fiddles with his thumbs and stares at the sauce stain. “Sorry,” he says quietly. Minhyuk doesn’t answer, but drops his glare. “What do you like about him?”

“Everything. Too much to list.”

“Tell me anyway,” Kihyun insists, and in his peripheral vision sees Minhyuk hide his smile in the crook of his arm.

  
  


#  **III.**

The weather has been terrible the last few days and Kihyun hasn’t seen his umbrella in weeks, but he’s managed to avoid the worst of it by keeping his hood up and his books under his shirt. Tonight, though, the downpour is horrible. No one can see more than two metres ahead, but Kihyun isn’t going back home any time soon, so he needs to force himself to grab dinner before the cafeteria closes for the night. He stares out the windows of the lecture room before resigning himself to his fate and pushing through.

He hits a waterfall and is immediately drenched, pushing through the diagonal rain in the general direction the path takes him. The only real thing grounding him to the earth is the feeling of his glasses folded into his fist and the blurry glow of the street lamps, but then something like a brick wall slams into his side and almost sends him down into the flood. A hand grips his forearm and rights him back up, and Kihyun finds himself in brief reprieve from the weather. He doesn’t have time to dwell on anything besides the water sloshing into his shoes, so he takes this blessing and squeezes close to his saviour, partially shielded by the stranger’s umbrella.

The glow of the campus’ main building shines like a beacon in the hazy rain, and the two of them practically barrel through the doors and barely miss knocking down a group of dismayed students staring out through the glass. Kihyun pries himself from the grip on his arm to shake out his hands and push his hair out of his eyes.

“Hooooly shit,” that eerie, familiar voice curses behind him. Kihyun doesn’t need to turn around—he knew who it was the second he felt the smooth grip of leather against his forearm.

“Thanks,” he mutters, unfolding his glasses and holding them up. Nothing dry to wipe them on, so he folds them back again and checks to make sure his wallet didn’t fall out of his pocket.

Hoseok shakes his umbrella out against the carpet. “Hey, Kihyun, right?”

Oh, God.

“Uh,” he continues, “are you getting dinner?”

Kihyun grinds his teeth. “No,” he lies. “I have to go. Thank you, again.”

He tries to speed walk out of the vestibule and towards the cafeteria, but the clicking heels of a pair of persistent boots follow after him. What kind of shoes is he wearing?

“Wait, wait,” Hoseok calls out after him. Kihyun can hear the snap of his umbrella folding closed. “What are you up to? Let’s chat for a bit.”

“I’m very busy tonight,” Kihyun sighs, making a beeline for the vending machine. He fishes his wallet out of his pocket and shakes it dry. “We’ll have to try again later.”

Kihyun keys in the number for a bag of trail mix but a hand slams over the money slot and he jumps in his spot. He still doesn’t dare turn around, instead choosing to grip the edge of the vending machine and drum his fingers on the side.

Hoseok is unbearably close. Kihyun can hear the water drip off of him and hit the linoleum. He pushes his bangs out of his eyes again and glares at his reflection in the glass. Hoseok keeps him held there for a few seconds of strangled silence.

“Okay, look,” he finally sighs, shifting his feet. Kihyun sees his reflection move behind him. “It’s fine if you dislike me.”

“Have I given off the impression that I dislike you, sunbae?” Kihyun’s voice is lined with sarcasm, razor sharp.

“I just want to talk,” Hoseok tries. “Not for long. I know you’re busy.”

Kihyun drums his fingers incessantly on the side of the vending machine, glaring into his own blurry reflection. The LCD screen reminds him to put his cash into the slot, blissfully unaware of his situation.

“Can we do this in sixty seconds or less?” Kihyun asks. He’s both impatient and nervous. Irritated and very, very uncomfortable. He spots a student by the door staring warily at them.

“Why are you studying physics?” Hoseok asks, right to the point. It’s a genuine question, void of all of Kihyun’s practised malice.

Kihyun exhales his practised lie. “I’m going to get my doctorate, do some personal research, and become an educator.”

Hoseok nods. “Decent plan.”

Kihyun can feel himself simmering under his skin and is about to chew Hoseok out for wasting his time when the older man continues. “How do you feel about abstract algebra?”

The hair on Kihyun’s arms stands on end and he turns over his shoulder to partially face his harasser. “What? Why are you asking me about  _ that?” _

From the light in Hoseok’s eye, he likes this reaction. “Well, I just noticed you’re doing independent studies on a few interesting topics. Abstract, theoretical engineering,” he glances away. “Quantum gravity and its unorthodox effects on time.”

Kihyun glares, turns around fully and sizes up the other man. His back is to the vending machine now but he still jams his tongue into his cheek. How the hell did Shin Hoseok figure out what his independent studies were on? Professor Kang, that backstabbing bitch. “Time’s almost up. What’s your point?”

“I’m just interested, that’s all,” Hoseok admits. “I want to know what ’personal research’ you’re working on. Peer review and all.”

Kihyun mulls over this. It’s a simple request, from one colleague to another, to share his findings. He assumes anyone else in his situation would jump at this opportunity to share their research. He purses his lips and nods his head. “No.”

Hoseok gives him an incredulous stare and Kihyun puts on his sweetest smile. He bends at the hip very slightly before turning on his heel and leaving. There’s another vending machine on the other end of this building and Kihyun is absolutely petty enough to use that one instead.

  
  


#  **IV.**

Hoseok ends up being only a midpoint in Kihyun’s life. He lies somewhere on the journey to the end. It all begins over a year ago, at the onset of his second year of Grad. Not  _ the _ beginning, but  _ a _ beginning.

Kihyun gets Mondays off.

It’s how he catches up with all the sleep he neglected over the weekend. It’s only the third week into the semester but he’s already thankful he’s made this decision for himself. In fact, he’s blissfully lying in bed, doing nothing and feeling no obligation to do anything, when his laptop monitor powers on and catches his attention.

He rubs his eye and squints at the screen from his spot on his pillow. He never closed it but it was in sleep mode the entire night. So there’s no reason he should be able to see his welcome page, or see his mouse move on its own, or see his password fill itself in, or  _ wait wait wait a second. _

He hops up out of his bed. Has he gotten hacked? He watches his cursor move around a bit before holding the power button down and forcing his machine off. It sits there in harmless silence, an idle machine on his desk. He curses and resolves to clean out his machine today, just in case he’s wandered into some particularly dangerous malware.

Kihyun fishes his toothbrush from his desk (the bathroom is unsanitary, thank you very much) and is wondering if he’ll be able to salvage any files when he gets a text. Minhyuk isn’t in his bed, so he assumes it’s his dear roommate checking up on him and reminding him to eat breakfast. He ignores it and goes to brush his teeth anyway. Minhyuk has a tendency to worry needlessly about his friends, even when his own life is kind of a mess.

He’s probably in the art studio hanging around Hyunwoo, that older guy who always smells like turpentine and maintains pretty much a single facial expression regardless of situation or circumstance. Kihyun is still wary of him, but Minhyuk practically glows whenever he talks about him. He’s still thinking about the validity of the guy’s presence in Minhyuk’s life when he washes the toothpaste out of his mouth and returns to his room. He finally picks up his phone, casts a look at his notifications, and puts it back down.

He pauses.

He picks it back up.

He has seven texts, and none of them are from Minhyuk.

+82-7-499-6521:  
hey. come on. don’t do that. turn your laptop back on, please

+82-2-013-6278:  
ooking for. we don’t have a lot of time to do this

+82-4-992-2054:  
it’s very risky to send these so i’ll be quick

+82-0-830-3749:  
i’m going to send you something but i need control to do it 

+82-1-756-2321:  
extremely important. i just need to know if you’re the one i’m l

+82-4-484-9264:  
some of these are out of order. you understand though, right?

+82-9-295-4122:  
i promise you won’t get in trouble for talking to me but this is

Kihyun’s blood runs cold. This is dangerous. He can already tell from the context that this is whoever was moving his mouse around on its own earlier. He blocks the phone numbers one by one, his hands shaking as his mind runs a mile a minute. Should he call the police? He gets to the last number when his phone buzzes with a new message.

+82-7-451-1544:  
please. we can’t do this without you and you know it

He frowns and hesitates before blocking this number. He knows this is some kind of scam, but there’s an odd sincerity to the messages. A desperation that grabs him in a familiar way. He considers typing out a reply, but the different numbers throw him off. He ends up blocking the last one, anyway. Another text arrives a short time later, so he puts his phone in airplane mode and puts it in his desk drawer, preoccupying himself with making breakfast.

  
  


#  **V.**

Kihyun spends the occasional night in the library, drifting off on one of the lounge chairs in his favourite spot besides the periodicals, until the ache in his shoulders forces him awake and he remembers the work he should be doing. He has a Further Advanced Calculus quiz coming up and, while this week’s concept isn’t completely new to him, he needs the refresher to ensure his flawless department record isn’t tarnished. Now and then, he remembers to check for any incoming messages, coming back a bit more disappointed each time. Kihyun tries not to dwell on it.

He’s in his usual seat at around 1:30 AM when a can of coffee appears beside him. His eyes are weak and weary from hours of staring at implicit derivatives so he doesn’t even realise someone is attached to the can until their hand lifts away. He mentally curses.

“I’m sorry,” he feigns an excuse. “I don’t drink coffee.”

It’s probably the worst lie he’s ever told, considering he’s essentially replaced his blood with caffeine. It doesn’t deter Hoseok from sliding besides him and resting his laptop on the table. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a tall black and green can.

“Do you want a Monster, instead?” he asks, holding the energy drink out tantalisingly. Kihyun grinds his teeth because he  _ really does _ want a Monster. He’s tired and needs a little extra push, but accepting it will mean giving in to Hoseok’s advances. Hoseok wriggles the can again, as if sensing the debate.

He surrenders and snags the can. Hoseok grins, successful.

“So are you just sitting next to me, now?” Kihyun asks, exasperated.

Hoseok pulls a pair of notebooks out of his backpack. “Mm-hm,” he confirms. “It’s like we’re in a drama.”

Kihyun lets out a long, fittingly dramatic sigh. “Sunbae,” he starts, hesitating before he can even think of opening his energy drink. “Thank you for being kind to me, but I genuinely have no interest in being friends or even acquaintances with you.”

Hoseok casts him a grim glance over his shoulder as he digs around his bag, but doesn’t otherwise act as if he’d even heard. Kihyun drums his fingers on the side of the can.

He decides to keep talking. “I’m sorry if this seems rude, but all I want to do is focus on my studies. I have to keep my GPA up and I don’t have a lot of time to socialise.”

“We’re not socialising,” Hoseok insists. He flips his notebook open and leafs through the sheets, settling on one page filled with calculations. “Did you do this assignment? Number 42?”

Kihyun stares straight ahead for a few moments, grinding his teeth with barely concealed rage before glancing sideways at Hoseok’s paper. He  _ does _ recognise the assignment number, but doesn’t say so. “Sunbae,” he warns.

“Did you notice anything wrong with it?” Hoseok continues, ignoring him. He clicks the lead out of his mechanical pencil and points to the problem. “Here, see? It looks like _ w _ and  _ x _ should be independent variables, but it’s set up with  _ x _ and  _ z _ as fixed variables and  _ w _ as a dependent.”

Kihyun drops his head and squeezes the bridge of his nose, taking a few seconds to calm his nerves, before flipping back a few pages in his own notebook and hunting for problem number 42. He finds it and offers it a cheap glance.

“It was a typo,” he sighs, angling the page towards Hoseok, who leans in with his brow low. “We’re supposed to differentiate with respect to  _ x _ and then with respect  _ y _ .”

Hoseok stares down at Kihyun’s paper. “So you just… solved a different problem.”

“I solved the  _ right _ problem. As opposed to the wrong one.”

Hoseok pushes the eraser of his pencil into his cheek and looks up to Kihyun. “How do you know it was a typo?”

Kihyun uses all his willpower to not glare any harder. “It’s obvious. There’s no other logical way to solve it.”

Hoseok looks excited at the reveal of that statement. “Here,” he hums, moving to his laptop to open a bookmark in his browser. “Look at this, I found a transcript of a lecture from India or something—”

“How specific,” Kihyun heckles.

Hoseok ignores him. “And the instructor basically breaks down the usual process—using multiple integration procedures to identify constants—into simpler terms by combining proofs. And, here, look at this,” Hoseok hands his notebook over and Kihyun fumbles to grab it. “Here, here, listen to this.”

“Sunbae,” Kihyun snaps, getting the older man’s attention. “I don’t have time for this.”

“I’ll be quick.”

_ “Sunbae,” _ Kihyun repeats. “It’s almost two in the morning.”

Hoseok leans in and Kihyun leans back. “I’ll be  _ quick.” _

Kihyun opens his mouth to object, but Hoseok has already turned back to the screen to read a passage from the transcript. Kihyun feels a migraine bloom behind his eyes. He wonders if this guy is really persistent, or just crazy.

Hoseok reads off the foreign instructor’s lecture while Kihyun stares down at his notebook. The top half of the page is a snippet of a drawn-out attempt at evaluating the flawed problem. It leads nowhere and ends up, obviously, a waste of time. The bottom half, however, starts out simple, deconstructing the function and its variables, introducing new, subscripted Greek letters to represent the parts substituted out. Kihyun frowns.

“Why would,” he starts, then Hoseok turns over his shoulder and flips the page.

“See, at this point, your functions are simple enough to sketch the gradient,” he adds, pointing out the spot on the new page where he has, indeed, sketched out each function’s approximate graphical representation. “That’s only added as a visual guideline but it helps illustrate why the next part works so well.”

Kihyun slowly finds himself invested in the process. It’s just a more basic, more tedious version of the usual implicit differentiation process, but taking it by these rural steps does manage to get somewhere. It’s a little like drawing out Pythagoras’ triangle or using geometry to explain multiplying polynomials, only about four degrees more complicated. Hoseok rattles off the steps he went through, occasionally turning back to point out where on the sheet he did it, and Kihyun finds himself following his words until he flips the notebook over to reveal the final answer.

Kihyun blinks a few times. “This is  _ not _ a solution,” he says.

Hoseok’s eyebrows hop up as he turns away from his laptop. “I mean. It’s ugly, but it’s the answer.”

Kihyun laughs, despite himself. “You went through all that to get the answer to a garbage problem?”

Hoseok smiles, but it’s bitter. “I did. I did the work, but the point isn’t what the answer is.” He taps the two-line-long solution with his index finger. “The point is, there  _ was _ an answer, and I  _ found _ it.”

“I mean,” Kihyun snorts, giving Hoseok a piteous look, “if you’re going to assume any combination of terms constitutes an answer, then the original function itself is just as much a solution as this is.”

“Well,” Hoseok makes a vague hand motion, “I think that depends on the format of the solution. Not every answer evens out to a neat little number and not every answer needs to.”

“Okay, sure, but this isn’t even viable,” Kihyun smacks the book with the back of his hand. “All you did was take a garbage function and make it  _ less _ coherent.”

“In what context?”

“In, in  _ any _ context!” Kihyun hands his notebook back to him. “You can’t do anything with five more variables that you couldn’t do with the first two. You’re just giving yourself more busywork.”

Hoseok gives him a phlegmatic look. “You can’t  _ solve _ the equation with just the first two. The busywork gives you a route to a concrete resolution.”

Kihyun returns the look. “This isn’t concrete; this isn’t even cement. This is barely sand. It’s just a string of numbers and letters and symbols. It doesn’t  _ mean _ anything.”

Hoseok exhales sharply through his nose and turns in his chair to face his hoobae. He motions with his hands, as if this would help stress the importance of his side of the argument. “In.  _ This. _ Context. You could argue that every homework assignment is meaningless and none of the answers mean anything. But the point is the  _ strategy _ lets you find alternate solutions in situations where you’d be otherwise stuck. It’s about the strength of the process,  _ not _ the comprehensibility of the solution.”

Kihyun squints at him, like he’s an idiot. “What am I supposed to do with an incomprehensible solution?”

Hoseok grits his teeth. “You do the work.”

Kihyun takes the statement like a bolt through the neck. He clicks his tongue. “I’m already doing the work, just for equations that matter.”

“Just like this one?” Hoseok feigns surprise. “This assignment that you exchanged for an easier problem?”

Kihyun leans his elbow on the back of his chair, disbelief etched on his face. “Are you suggesting something?”

Hoseok points to Kihyun’s notebook. “You didn’t want to evaluate something tedious so you made your own work-around and took the easy way out.”

“Why would I spend hours evaluating something that would just give me two lines of junk like you did?” Kihyun hisses. At some point his other hand found the edge of the table and now he vaguely worries that if he grips it any harder he’s going to break the tips of his fingers. “It’s two in the morning and I have  _ actual  _ work I need to do.”

Hoseok stares at him, his cool unresponsiveness a stark contrast to Kihyun’s poorly suppressed rage. He purses his lips in thought, only upsetting Kihyun further. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” he insists, but his expression is mocking and his tone is nonchalant and teasing. “I’m just saying, things in life will go a lot easier for you if you just do the work.”

_ “All _ I ever do is the work,” he growls through clenched teeth. Hoseok barely bats an eye. “Do you think I’m staying awake all night in the library for my health?”

“Cutting corners isn’t—”

Kihyun slams his hands down on the table. “I don’t cut any  _ fucking _ corners!” He gets to his feet and accidentally knocks the forgotten can of Monster over, sending it plummeting and clattering loudly onto the floor. Hoseok stares at him with his eyebrows tweaked up, a look of puppyish worry etched onto his face.

Kihyun, suddenly aware of his outburst, feels his face heat up and his head goes into a frenzy. His hands scramble for something to do and he pulls his glasses off, rubbing his forehead and looking around.

“You know what?” Kihyun decides suddenly. “I’m done with this.” He shakily sweeps all of his books and supplies into a pile and Hoseok makes a move to stop him.

“Wait—”

“Leave me alone,” Kihyun warns, dumping his supplies into his bag. His hands are trembling in both anger and embarrassment, and the uncertainty shows in his voice as well, but that doesn’t stop him. “Leave me alone, I don’t care about your complex differential math techniques, and I don’t know what you want from me but I don’t have anything to give you, okay?”

“No, listen—”

“Leave me alone,” Kihyun slings his bag onto one shoulder and bunches his coat under his arm.

“I’m,” Hoseok stands up, grabbing onto Kihyun’s bag. “I’m, I’m sorry, listen, I’m not trying to—”

“I don’t care,” Kihyun snarls, pulling against Hoseok’s grip. “Let  _ go _ of me.”

Hoseok doesn’t relent. “No, no, please, I showed you this for a reason.”

Kihyun tugs again, and there’s a faint ripping sound as a stressed stitch in his bag’s loop gives. “I don’t care,” he repeats, voice strained with desperation. “I don’t care, I have to go, I don’t care.”

“I think, I, I need your help,” Hoseok attempts. “I can’t do this without you, you’re the only one who can—”

Kihyun whirls around and grabs Hoseok’s arm, wrenching it from his hold on his bag and backs up. He stumbles over the chair leg and Hoseok makes a motion to catch him, but Kihyun keeps his legs under him and manages to break into a jog.

“Kihyun, wait!” Hoseok calls after him, but Kihyun keeps going, slipping around a corner and running as hard as he can away from that man and towards his apartment.

He doesn’t even bother to think or catch his breath until he’s safe in his flat, back pressed against the door and bag dropped at his feet. He’s panting, trying to breathe after essentially running for several blocks and all the way up the stairs, and his arms won’t stop shaking. He’s wondering if it’s from exertion or fear or stress when he hears someone moving in the darkness of his room and his heart jumps.

He reaches blindly for the light switch, flipping it up and revealing Minhyuk, hair already messed up from sleeping, peering at him from his bed through heavy eyes. Relief floods out of Kihyun’s body, even if he doesn’t know what he was afraid of to begin with.

“Whoa,” Minhyuk mutters, squinting at his roommate through the light. “Are you okay?”

Kihyun shuts his eyes and leans his head back against the door. He opens his mouth to speak, but ends up doubling over and coughing, his chest tight from his panic and his running. He hears Minhyuk’s bed move and then feels a pair of hands brace his shoulders.

“Hey, hey,” Minhyuk coos, rubbing his friend’s back. He spends a few moments leading Kihyun to sit on the floor and passing him a bottle of water, making sure he doesn’t choke on that.

“He’s,” Kihyun starts, then clears his throat again. “He’s crazy. He’s a fucking creep.”

Minhyuk leans in. “Who? That… that guy in your class?”

Kihyun nods and takes another drink. “He’s insane, he, God, fuck him.”

“What did he do?” Minhyuk asks. Even through his half-asleep slurring, the sense of urgency is real.

Kihyun shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Minhyuk looks even more panicked, pressing his hands under Kihyun’s jaw and looking him in the eye. “What did he do, did he hurt you?”

Kihyun shakes his head, placing his hands over Minhyuk’s. “No, no, no, he didn’t do anything like that. I’m just…” Kihyun swallows and thinks about their past conversations, about Hoseok’s insistence on knowing more about Kihyun’s personal projects. That phrase rings in his head, echoing the time he heard something similar, about a year ago.

_ I can’t do this without you, you’re the only one who can— _

“I think he’s after Hyungwon,” he admits, and Minhyuk’s eyes stay steady.

“Are you sure?” he asks, voice barely at a whisper.

Kihyun feels a bead of sweat on his temple, but isn’t sure if it’s from the exertion or something else.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Wow. This is published now, huh?
> 
> This was/is over a year in the making. The full story currently sits at an estimated 80k words, but with more editing and fleshing out to be done, this number isn't static. Thank you for reading this first chapter. It's been a long time coming but I started it with the intention of publishing it one day, so, here it is.
> 
> This story is kind of a mix between a vent fic and a recovery fic. I went into a lost of research trying to give it substance, but ended up tricking myself into thinking critically about my own flaws and issues. I'm terrified at the idea of putting this out into the world. That being said, constructive criticism will always, always be welcome.
> 
> That's it. If all goes well, I'll try to update this on a weekly/alternating weekly basis. Thank you again.


	2. 1 - 2

#  **VI.**

Back.

> so how do you know about hyungwon?_

Kihyun types the question into the command prompt on his laptop. He’s tucked into a chair in the corner of the library, isolated back by the periodicals, as instructed by his mysterious hacker friend who watches him through security cameras. He’s long since taped over the front camera on his laptop, but that  _ “can’t really stop me, sorry,” _ according to his cyber-stalker.

He’s still not really sure how he feels about having a hacker instruct him on how to have casual conversation, but if it’s related to Hyungwon—someone who he’s been painstakingly, yet helplessly, searching for since he was a teenager—he’ll try anything once. And that includes letting a crafty stranger access his laptop remotely so they can talk in a way that allegedly can’t be traced. He already backed up all his most important files, anyway.

Kihyun stares at the black screen of the command prompt and waits for a reply to type itself out, letter by letter underneath his question.

> i met him for the first time two years ago. he told me everything._

Kihyuns swallows, still uneasy about this discussion, but types out his response anyway.

> what do you mean “everything”?_  
> i mean everything. how he jumps through time. how many of us he visited_  
> oh my god this is so hard to read back._  
> lol_  
> which one is you and which one is me?_  
> every time the terminal source switches it prints an underscore btw_  
> it does???_  
> yeah see  
> so when i’m done typing and you start it’ll end my line in an underscore_  
> oh my god it does._  
> so like just keep track of who says what_  
> ok uh.  
> anyway.  
> how many of us are there?_

Kihyun stares at the command prompt, eyes straining to read the tiny text. The kerning is absolute trash, but there’s not much to do about it. The underscore appears at the end of his question as the prompt moves to the next line and the answer comes slowly, as if the other person is considering the merits of answering.

> well i’m here with someone else  
> and he’s contacting another guy  
> and there’s also your friend lee minhyuk  
> so that’s a total of five of us so far_

Kihyun swallows the lump in his throat. His fingers hesitate to reply, but he knows he’s being watched.

> hyungwon said he was being chased by bad people._  
> i know. he is. i’m not one of them and ideally neither are you_  
> i’m not really in a position to believe you._

Kihyun remembers, with absolute clarity, the image of Chae Hyungwon on their last afternoon together.

Kihyun was only fifteen but Hyungwon was in his mid twenties, like he had been since Kihyun was young, and he remembers seeing that indescribable sadness on his hyung’s face. (He also remembers Hyungwon insisting that he was technically the younger one, but Kihyun didn’t believe that at the time.) He never really understood where he went or why he had to leave, but there was an urgency in those last, vague instructions Hyungwon gave him that forced him to disregard all doubt.

> i understand. you’re right to be cautious  
> but i think i might have something for you  
> i have no idea what this thing means but give me ten minutes while it buffers and i’ll send it to you

Kihyun drums his fingers on the side of the wooden chair, glancing around to see if anyone is near. The library is especially empty this weekend, with most students gone to celebrate Chuseok at home in a few days. He’s isolated enough that he thinks he’ll be okay, but the nerves still get to him.

> you do that a lot huh_

Kihyun squints at the message, not completely understanding.

> what?_  
> tapping your fingers on things when you’re annoyed  
> it’s like your nervous habit

Kihyun reads the message a few more times, then glares up at the ceiling, searching for a security camera.

> i’m using the one to your immediate left, in the corner

He looks up and to the left.

> yup. hi_  
> how long have you been spying on me that you’ve identified my tics?_  
> only about a few months_  
> that’s creepy!_  
> i kno_  
> that’s rea_  
> w_  
> lly really c_  
> _  
> reepy!_  
> please don’t type at the same time as me  
> it fucks everything up_

Kihyun snorts at that. He wonders if his mystery stalker has a sense of humour, but kinda doubts it.

> don’t you have some buffering to do?_  
> i can type and buffer at the same time_

His fingers hover over the keyboard. He wonders if he should keep quiet, then remembers that he’s the one who’s drawn the short straw and might as well reach for anything is his grasp.

> how old are you?_  
> i’m not sure i should say yet_  
> come on, you know everything about me and you’ve been watching me for weeks and i don’t even know your name_  
> that’s different. if you’re not actually my allies, i need to keep an eye on you to make sure hyungwon stays safe_  
> that’s not fair._  
> it’s not my fault i’m the only one who can do this  
> i won’t sabotage your career or anything if it turns out that way  
> i’ll just need to keep you and lee minhyuk away from my friend_  
> and what am i supposed to do if it turns out we’re not allies and you’re the one out to hurt him?_  
> well that doesn’t make sense because i’m not out to hurt him at all so idk what point you’re trying to make_  
> i’m saying i can’t trust you just as much as you can’t trust me.  
> at least tell me something. something inconsequential. your name. anything._

No reply comes at first so Kihyun looks up at the camera. The light blinks at him a handful of times but doesn’t respond.

> jooheon_  
> jooheon?_  
> that’s my name_  
> jooheon.  
> ok.  
> and are you younger than me?_  
> yup_  
> you’re not, like, nine, are you?_  
> i’m not nine  
> i’m of age  
> if i was nine i’d be calling you ahjussi_

Kihyun finds himself smiling, but tries to hide it from the library camera.

> you’re of age but you’re still a brat, i see._  
> honestly  
> if you think i’m a brat you should see my partner_  
> is your partner nine???_  
> practically_  
> oh my god._

Kihyun wants to ask him more, but he doesn’t get a chance to.

> done buffering  
> do your best_

And instead of another message from Jooheon, the screen fills up with numbers, seemingly random, until Kihyun recognises them. His eyes widen and his mouth falls open, completely forgetting that he’s being watched, while he leans in and scrolls back up to the top. He knows this. The first line of 64 numbers have all been burned into his head since he first saw them on that mysterious piece of paper Hyungwon gave him, just before he left. He’s fuzzy on the pattern after that, but he knows that first line. And he knows there are 64 full lines of numbers because he knows there are over 4,000 numbers all together. He thinks he might understand the significance of this power of two more if he went into computer engineering, but he received instruction on what to do, and it was physics and raw mathematics.

He used to keep the first 64 numbers in the back of his head, a safety net when he thought things were hopeless. But not anymore. He figured out a better 64 digit number, a perfectly condensed version of what he was given, finalised only about a month before Jooheon first contacted him.

But he has to be careful. He isn’t going risk falling for a trick. So he picks his bag up off the floor and pulls out a single, slim binder that only has a few papers in it. He plucks out the first one and holds it close to his face. It’s a photocopy of the original, crisp enough to read all the tiny, grainy numbers, and he’s spent years gazing glossy-eyed at it. As expected, the first 64 characters on the command prompt are identical to the ones on the paper, but he still has 4,032 more to go.

  
  


#  **VII.**

Forward.

He avoids Hoseok.

It’s difficult, considering their similar class schedules, but Kihyun outsmarts him by arriving right as the class period begins and sprinting out the second it ends. It’s cowardly behaviour, but he doesn’t want to risk running into that guy unprepared again. He lets his guard down now and then to check his laptop, desperate to spread the bad news, but the opportunity never comes up and puts him further on edge. So it goes on for about a week.

His strategy works well until the professor asks them to retrieve their graded quizzes from his desk before class. That little action holds Kihyun up enough that he becomes hyper aware of Hoseok’s presence on the other end of the desk when he pulls up his paper. Thankfully, they don’t interact and Kihyun is safe. Before he leaves, the professor tests fate and holds him back long enough to hand him an event flyer he barely looks at, and the act catches Hoseok’s eyes, but he only turns and leaves. Kihyun exits the room from the other door, unbothered.

He unfolds his test paper to check the grade once before he starts to stuff it unceremoniously into his bag. It takes a moment to register, but when it does, his whole body freezes up.

He pulls it back out of his bag and stares at it in the middle of the hall.

_ 87% _

It’s not a particularly bad score. But it’s not full marks.

He’s disappointed, definitely, but he knows he can still pull an A with his performance. He isn’t really worried about getting a single solid  _ B _ in a class he’s over-prepared for. In fact, it’s pretty obvious that his markdowns were all from careless, sloppy mistakes. He knows the material, he just lost focus.

What’s worse, Kihyun  _ knows _ it’s partially because he was so frazzled by Hoseok’s odd behaviour. He ended up forgoing his study session and popping a few of Minhyuk’s illicit emergency sleeping pills, waking up with the world’s heaviest eyelids, and barely making it to class with his pants buttoned up. He’s still a bit shaken up (obviously, considering his reaction at the end of his last class) and worries that this might affect his other assignments.

Kihyun smiles to himself at the idea of one creepy stranger throttling him so badly it shows up on his transcript. How would he even explain that to his parents? Sorry, Dad, my GPA fell because some mysterious biker dude tried to get too involved in my life and psychologically affected me to the point of failure.

He can’t even imagining failing but, hey, an 87 when he’s been shooting solid 100s is at least a 13% drop. If the pattern continues, the next quiz should be at a 75, then a 65. That’s only two incrementally worsening grades away, and those might be worth more than simple quizzes.

He’s heading down a flight of stairs, calculating how the rate of his increasing incompetence could affect his grade. Honestly, it would be pretty difficult to drop his class grade that hard. He would have to get zeros on every assignment from here on out. He considers skipping class for the rest of the semester.

But an 87 isn’t really that big of a deal. He’s certain that with a little extra credit he can pretend this sour B never even happened. He  _ knows _ the material, after all. He isn’t stupid.

Kihyun continues reassuring himself of all this as he finds the single-stall bathroom in the building and locks himself inside to stare at his test.

All of his mistakes are stupid. All of them. Absolutely childish, careless errors. Forgetting a plus-minus or a constant. An arithmetic error, a fucking  _ arithmetic _ error, like he’s made it all the way to his third year of grad under a General Physics and Mathematics degree not knowing the goddamn order of operations. Like he can’t count to four with both of his hands. He flips to the second page, thankfully free of any mistakes, but the third is marked down for misreading the question, for doing the wrong process. Kihyun stares at Professor Kang’s marks, where he’s underlined the part of the question he  _ clearly _ didn’t read.

The part he  _ clearly _ didn’t finish.

He wrenches the paper in his hands, crinkling it as he tries to convince himself to stop shaking. It’s just a B. It’s not the first one he’s gotten, not even the first one he’s gotten in university. It’s not going to affect his grade adversely. He knows the material. He’s not stupid.

He sets the test paper down on the sink, letting it soak up stray droplets while he pulls his glasses off and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. It’s just a B. It’s not a problem.

It’s  _ not _ a problem. If anything, his biggest problem is dealing with that guy and finding Hyungwon.

He drops his hands and makes eye contact with his reflection. God. What if he doesn’t know the order of operations?

He’s been working on the data Jooheon gave him for over a year now, all fourteen pages of nonstop numbers and symbols and variables that had no real purpose until they were in his hands and he could  _ break _ them and piece like terms together. He’s spent months tearing through stat and algebra textbooks he borrowed from department faculty and practising theorems and disciplining himself to whittle it down to a measly three-page clusterfuck, but what if he made an  _ arithmetic error? _ What if, somewhere when pages 5 and 6 were becoming page 2, he dropped a plus-minus sign and never thought to try a different route, and the last nine months of straining his eyes between absolutely demolishing his classes have just been him pushing around coals?

“I’m not fucking stupid,” he tells his reflection. But his eyes are panicked and his arms are unsteady because, God, what if he  _ is _ stupid? What if he had a bad day four months ago and made a tiny, unnoticeable mistake and now all his progress is fucked? He realises that he has no choice but to start over, back to the original fourteen pages, and double-, triple-, quadruple-check his work.

Kihyun starts thinking that, maybe, his plan to never show up to class again is actually a great idea. It’ll give him more time to pore endlessly over his months of work, to flip through the pages of that binder that went from a few handfuls of loose-leaf to over a hundred, scratched up sheets of his attempts. It’s all he has left.

He wants to cry so he kind of does. Just a little bit. His eyes mist up and his nose burns but he shoves it away. He pushes it down because he hates feeling like this, hates this hopelessness that’s welled up in his chest. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t convince himself it’s because of an unsatisfactory grade. He just wants to see Hyungwon again.

Kihyun pushes his hands into his eyes, hard, forcing the burn away, and blows his nose. He’s going home, he’s going to bury himself in his texts, and he’s going to finish whittling down the algorithm to something that can help them find Hyungwon. Nothing else. Not anymore. He can’t risk anything anymore.

  
  


#  **VIII.**

“I want to apologise,” Hoseok is saying one day.

Kihyun is mostly ignoring him, sipping his drink and staring down at his barely touched plate. Minhyuk squirms beside him, too uncomfortable to take a bite out of his own food.

Hoseok has never needed encouragement to continue, so he keeps talking. “I was being too forward and I made you uncomfortable. That wasn’t my intention and I’m sorry.”

He adjusts his stance, both hands resting on the cafeteria table, and leans in a bit, seeking some acknowledgement that Kihyun has even heard him. He gets nothing, so Minhyuk speaks up. “Maybe you should go,” he suggests. “Today isn’t really a good day for this.”

Hoseok doesn’t stop peering oddly at Kihyun, who takes his time glaring at his food. The vegetables are undercooked, the rice is too oily, the meat was seasoned oddly and has sloppy presentation, the cabbage is floppy and old, they put in too much ginger and not enough red pepper, he feels like he can taste the perfume of whoever prepared this like a film over the entire meal, the broth was haphazardly dumped over everything instead of properly stewed and sectioned, it was probably stored in a plastic packet and he almost expects he’ll have to pull a piece of cling wrap out of his mouth, the plate is dirty, the utensils are dirty, the table is dirty, the open air is filled with filth and bacteria, the kitchen is probably unsanitary, there’s no proof the staff has washed their hands or covered their hair, and he has no choice but to eat this because he  _ started _ it, he’s gonna fucking  _ finish _ it, and maybe if he’s lucky his stomach will agree with him until he gets back home, starts over, and makes something decent for dinner. Kihyun is so busy scrutinising his plate that he doesn’t see the conflict flicker across his sunbae’s face, but he  _ does _ hear his defeated sigh.

“Okay, that’s fine,” he surrenders, standing up straight and cracking the tension out of his knuckles. “I don’t need you to forgive me, I just wanted to apologise.”

Hoseok bends at his waist, a sincere gesture, and Minhyuk eyes Kihyun curiously. Kihyun watches his sunbae from behind his eyelashes, gently drumming the pads of his fingers on the table. Kihyun sighs, letting his eyes drop closed again and willing himself to calm down.

“Thank you, sunbae,” Kihyun responds, then goes back to his drink.

Hoseok stands upright and pauses, staring vaguely over their heads. Minhyuk looks back and forth between him and Kihyun, silently begging the moment to end.

“Hello,” a voice sounds out and Minhyuk’s heart jumps into his chest. He whirls around and spots Hyunwoo, who’s returned from fetching the three of them napkins for their lunch date. Hyunwoo stares oddly at Hoseok, who stares back like someone who isn’t sure if he’s being spoken to.

Hyunwoo glances at Minhyuk, ignores the panic in his eyes, and tries again. “Are you sitting with us?”

Hoseok registers that he’s the one being spoken to at the same time Kihyun registers what’s happening.

“No,” they respond in unison, and Kihyun can’t fucking  _ stand _ it.

Hyunwoo looks confused and surprised so Hoseok uses the opportunity to excuse himself. “Enjoy your lunch,” he says, then practically jogs away.

Hyunwoo rounds the table, staring after him as he takes his seat. “Who was that?”

“No one important,” Minhyuk reassures him. He pats Hyunwoo’s hand and takes a napkin from him.

“Are you sure?” Hyunwoo asks. He looks at Kihyun this time. “Do you know him?”

“Not really,” Kihyun answers. “He’s no one.”

“Are you  _ sure?” _ Hyunwoo asks again. His eyebrows pull together and he glances at the exit Hoseok used again.

Minhyuk and Kihyun exchange a look. “Do  _ you _ know him, hyung?”

Hyunwoo, who has his food in front of him, has already started digging in while he thinks over his answer. “Maybe,” he responds.

“What do you mean, ’maybe’?” Minhyuk asks, narrowing his eyes, but Hyunwoo only shrugs.

  
  


#  **IX.**

> and then i died_

Kihyun starts to drum his fingers on the table, but stops himself. He’s back in his favourite corner of the library, talking to his favourite hacker through the command prompt. Since he started working on the fourteen-page monster Jooheon sent him a month ago he hasn’t been in frequent contact with his mysterious friend. It doesn’t help that he has to wait for Jooheon to contact him first, but he was still relieved to wake up to a text message from a mysterious number.

Now, he wasn’t so sure. He stares at the command prompt a bit, at the task manager ticking away gently in a background window, and types out a tentative reply.

> i’m sorry._  
> it wasn’t your fault, hyung  
> i don’t even remember lol_

Kihyun can’t shake off the uneasy feeling in his chest. In all honesty, there’s no reason for him to feel any remorse over an alternate version of someone he’s never met. He shouldn’t even believe in Hyungwon’s mysterious genre of time skipping, either. But the pinch in his heart doesn’t subside with logic.

> i know it makes no sense but i just feel so guilty.  
> like  
> inadequate._  
> well i mean  
> you did apparently try to save me a bunch  
> to varying levels of success_  
> i did????_  
> yup  
> hyungwon gave you a second chance  
> and a third and a fourth and a fifth and a sixth  
> i died a lot apparently_  
> wow! that makes me feel a lot better!_  
> i don’t know why you thought running after a car barrelling out of control down the freeway would make a difference but it really didn’t_  
> god you just  
> know exactly how to cheer me up.  
> we really are trans-universal soulmates._  
> lmfaoooo its ok in the end you did it  
> i ended up being the one alive in the timeline he came from_

It doesn’t really take a genius to read between lines on Jooheon’s statement, but Kihyun clarifies anyway.

> “the one alive” insinuates that i’m the one who died instead._  
> yeah  
> hyungwon said that someone had to die  
> and gave you the opportunity to choose who_

Kihyun looks up to the camera on the ceiling, staring for a good, long moment before responding.

> i died for you._  
> is that a question, hyung?_  
> no, no  
> i just can’t imagine doing that for someone today.  
> i wonder what kind of person i was._  
> you were obviously someone very generous_  
> i wonder what we were._  
> ?? what do you mean_

Kihyun rests his palm on his hand, staring down at the blinker in the command prompt. Minhyuk has been spending loads of his spare time in the art studios, plagued by constant, ominous nightmares and forced to try and parse them into something visual. Kihyun thinks, maybe, he’s gotten off lucky, considering he has the ability to put Hyungwon’s work down and rest without worry. It’s rare, but he _ can_ do it. Minhyuk, on the other hand, has been bleeding out the eyes for the past few nights (figuratively, but not very) and has been leaning heavily on the antihistamines to combat his night terrors. He finally got back home at around 7:00 AM this morning and collapsed on his bed, so Kihyun ended up pulling his shoes off and tucking him all the way in, like a doting mother, praying that he would stay asleep and avoid the dreams for once.

Kihyun can imagine doing that for Minhyuk, but only because he’s been there during the worst nights, and because he knows it’s all for Hyungwon. He can’t imagine connecting with someone to the extent of dying for them, and, even then, not in so loveless a way that he died for Jooheon a lifetime ago.

> what do you look like?_  
> uh that’s sudden and kind of hard to answer lol  
> two eyes and a nose, mouth etc_  
> you should send me a picture of yourself._  
> nnnnnnnoooooooo?????  
> come on hyung thats way too dangerous_  
> you get to spy on me 24/7 through every security camera in the city.  
> it’s hardly fair._  
> i know that but its too dangerous to send a picture  
> people could be looking for us  
> and if they find me, they’ll find all of you_

Kihyun pouts, brushing off the genuine hazard of letting their information fall into the wrong hands.

> then describe yourself to me!!  
> be honest!! how tall are you!!!_  
> oh my godddddddddd  
> i’m?? 1.77m i think it’s been a while since i measured myself though so i may have grown_  
> alright show off congrats moving on._  
> lmfaooooooo  
> are you upset because i’m taller than you hyung_  
> moving on moving on!  
> what do you do besides break into society’s infrastructure and babysit?_  
> you mean hobbies or in general_  
> both!_

The ticker stays still, so Kihyun glances up to the camera again. He wonders to what extent Jooheon spies on him when they chat like this. He takes a peek around to make sure his section of the library is still secluded.

> i don’t do anything too special besides this i guess  
> i play the drums to cool off between sessions, but my partner hates it lol_  
> do you two live together?_  
> technically_  
> explain._  
> we have a secret base of operations that we spend way too much time in lol  
> and my kit is here to help me out when i’m stressed and to irritate him_  
> oh cool, so you’re a mysterious musician._  
> lolol i’m not i’m not  
> it’s just a casual hobby  
> i wanted to start a band when i was younger but  
> it didn’t work out that way_  
> what happened?

A long pause. Kihyun wonders if he’s overstepped his boundaries.

> you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to._  
> no no it’s just  
> a long story  
> tl;dr my parents really didn’t want me going into music and eventually it got to me_  
> oh, that sucks.  
> i’m so sorry._  
> it’s fine lol i’ve had years to get over it  
> and besides it was like my fate to do this instead  
> so i guess it’s not like i really had an option_  
> you really believe in fate like that?  
> like you don’t actually have a choice and the universe just tosses you around regardless of your desires?_  
> well  
> when you meet someone who’s been through loads of timelines and knows the extents of your pasts and futures you kind of come to terms with stuff that’s out of your control_  
> i don’t think this is out of our control at all.  
> i think we all had a choice and picked what we thought was right._  
> really_  
> yes 100% absolutely!  
> i mean i could just  
> not do fourteen pages of advanced improbable extremely theoretical and mostly nonsense math-adjacent busywork.  
> you could have just blown your parents off and been a musician, to hell with the consequences._  
> i’d honestly rather not get disowned but i guess you’re tangentially right_  
> you know what i mean!!  
> and like, you know how dangerous this all is.  
> you know how high the stakes are and you have a life and a family and all of that is in jeopardy.  
> the stakes don’t take away your free will.  
> but you’re still doing this._  
> well, i guess but  
> after hearing about the trouble hyungwon said he was in i kind of felt obligated to do this  
> like, i realised that i had a predetermined destiny set out before me and i accepted it i guess  
> but i would never reject it to begin with? like that’s just not the way my morals align so i the option of walking away was never presented to me  
> but i don’t feel forced into this  
> lol am i even making sense_  
> no no i understand you.  
> you feel like you had a job to do and you took it.  
> but you could have rejected it!_  
> no i don’t think i could have  
> i think the guilt would have eaten me alive lol_  
> well  
> maybe your morals decided your fate for you.  
> maybe your destiny was always just to be a person who follows his beliefs? maybe that’s the case for all of us_  
> it seems pretty simple when you think about it that way huh?  
> but then you get to situations where i mysteriously die in a car crash and people’s lives are cut short and you wonder if that death is part of fate, too_  
> yeah...  
> did fate determine that you were going to die in an accident and hyungwon intervened and let me take that from you?  
> or was i always meant to eventually sacrifice myself for you and hyungwon was another predestined piece of inevitability?  
> or are we all just lucky to be conscious in this particular branch of this particular timeline, blessed with the essence of memories from a lifetime we’re never going to understand while simultaneously co-existing in those exact memories?_  
> uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what  
> you’re getting kind of vague lmfao_  
> well if there’s an infinite number of universes with an infinitely dense gradient of possibilities for every outcome of every situation that branches off into other infinite realities things can get as fucking vague as they want_  
> XDDDDDDD wooow  
> you get really excited talking about this stuff huh_

Kihyun involuntarily unbuttons the top of his shirt. He  _ is _ getting a little winded, actually, and it’s definitely because he loves debating people to futile ends. But Jooheon doesn’t need to know that. He quickly types out his reply.

> i like riddles._  
> speaking of riddles  
> how’s the jumble of numbers going?_  
> it’s a jumble!  
> i’m honestly still going through the decryption process.  
> it’s really similar to the way the paper hyungwon gave me was encoded but the length is making me a little more wary of making any mistakes.  
> and so far it looks like i’m going to be repeating a lot of processes i went through to solve that first copy, so this will probably take less than ten years to evaluate. regardless of length._  
> perfect_  
> it’s becoming more and more obvious to me that i’m not going to be able to hammer this down to something neat.  
> the first one was lucky enough to start small and end small.  
> at best i can get maybe eleven or twelve ridiculously long, unsolvable equations._  
> compared to what it is now, i’m sure that will be plenty_  
> even if i can’t solve them?_  
> when the other side gets to you you’ll probably be able to get something decent out of them_

Kihyun picks at a spot on his lip, reading the last few lines back. He taps his finger on his bottom lip a few times before leaning in, squinting at the words.

> there’s another “side”???_  
> yes. sorry if i forgot to mention that_  
> jooheon-ah!!_  
> yes?_  
> jooheon???? there’s another side!!!!_  
> hyung?_  
> jooheon!!!!!_  
> hyung?????_  
> g.i.v.e it to me, jooheon!!_  
> oh i can’t_  
> what do you mean you ““can’t””???  
> jooheon there are over 60 unknown variables i have to deal with and it’s like pulling teeth  
> if you had told me earlier that there was more i’d be less leisurely about pulling my teeth out!!!!  
> trust me things will go a lot fucking faster if i get!! both sides!!! now!!!!_  
> oh my god  
> deep breaths_  
> jooheon why wouldn’t you tell me about this earlier?  
> do i have to solve this one before i get the other part?_  
> yes, technically_  
> ““““technically””””_  
> i mean you’re not going to be able to finish your half until the other half is done  
> but you just need to do your best to simplify what you have for now_  
> i can’t simplify incomplete data!  
> also, more importantly: i have to wait until the other half is done??  
> is it buffering?? how long is the second part???  
> jesus fucking christ you should have told me this a long time ago i don’t have time for this!_  
> hyung hyung please calm down  
> you don’t need to simplify the other half you only need to worry about the one you already have_  
> ok but it’ll be a lot easier if i can get the second one now!  
> if they’re part of the same set and they share any data whatsoever i can get through this better._  
> hyung the other set isn’t done yet_  
> when will it be done? what’s it doing?_  
> hyung i really can’t answer all these questions_  
> jooheon can you please tell me what’s going on?  
> at least a little bit? please?? i need to know what my exact workload is. please._  
> you have your workload already  
> you only need to focus on that right now, i promise you_  
> what about when i’m done with it? then what?_  
> then  
> the other half will hopefully be done too_  
> and then????_  
> and then you’ll solve the whole problem  
> together_

Kihyun leans as far away from the screen as he can, mouth agape in a silent gasp. He looks around quickly before pulling his laptop from the library table and into his lap.

> who!_  
> i don’t know!_  
> what do yo_  
> i don’_  
> u m_  
> t kno_  
> ean _  
> w i d_  
> y_  
> on’t kn_  
> uo don’t know???_  
> ow wh_  
> ?????_  
> o it is!! i didn’t give him the please don’t type at the same time as me it really makes this difficult_  
> jooheon who has the second part!_  
> i don’t know! i don’t know who he is! my partner does!_  
> i thought you knew everything that was going on?_  
> i do! i know what we have to do and i know who needs to help but i don’t actually know everyone’s names or faces  
> i know you and i know lee minhyuk but i’ve never communicated with him and i don’t know who his counterpart is and i don’t know who yours is!_  
> isn’t that kind of a giant oversight???_  
> no! it’s to keep everyone safe if  
> if someone starts tracking us down it’ll be harder if we can’t actually lead dangerous people to each other  
> if someone finds me then they’ll only have arguably a third of the group and trying to determine who else is connected will take time  
> if something happens to me then i made sure you and changkyun will know immediately and  
> then it’s up to all of you to escape immediately and take care of each other_

Kihyun’s stomach twists in a knot. He draws his knees up to rest on the bar beneath the table, holding the screen closer.

> jooheon-ah.  
> i don’t think this is a good idea.  
> if something happens we all need to know as soon as possible._  
> no, that’s not how it works  
> the closer we get the more vulnerable we become  
> even if we don’t communicate directly, having too many connections is dangerous  
> they’ll find us  
> we’re breaking laws that haven’t even been properly written yet just by existing near each other  
> they’ll find us and they’ll find hyungwon and then it’s over_  
> jooheon i really do_  
> i don’_  
> n’t thin_  
> t care_  
> k this is a jooheon please don’t type when i’m typing._  
> hyung i care about you very much but i’m the only one that knows the best way to do this  
> i just need you to trust me ok_

Kihyun blinks at the sudden sincerity. It seems off, unexpected, a little awkward. But he  _ did _ die for this guy, once upon a time.

> i  
> don’t know._  
> then trust in hyungwon and the trust that he has in me  
> there’s a reason he told me so much and hasn’t been around to see some of us in the past few years  
> i’m sorry that i can’t give you all the answers now but i just need you to suspend your disbelief and let things play out_

Kihyun’s eyebrows pinch together hard, and he curls up smaller, balancing his laptop on his knees and peering closely at the screen. He knows,  _ knows, _ in his heart that being separated is a dangerous way to do this. But he doesn’t understand how dangerous it could possibly be to be together. Even just being in contact with one another is risky, according to Jooheon’s words. He’s tired of being led around, tired of the confusion and the withheld information.

> how many of us are there. all together._

The ticker blinks for a few moments.

> six, plus hyungwon_  
> is that everyone? last time you said five._  
> that’s everyone_  
> ok.  
> and when will i meet my partner and get the other half of the set?_  
> i can’t predict that  
> it’ll happen when you’ve both gone as far as you can go_  
> will you tell me when it’s time to meet him?_  
> it’s out of my hands  
> i don’t know who he is and i don’t know when it’ll happen  
> you’re just going to have to trust in your instincts_  
> god that’s vague._  
> i think your exact words were  
> things can get as vague as they fucking want_

Kihyun smirks at that, but it’s tense.

> what if this is the timeline where everything goes wrong?  
> what if this is the timeline where it all falls apart?_  
> then  
> we won’t know until it’s too late  
> there’s a timeline where you and i lived full lives and there was never a crash  
> and we got to grow into old assholes together and our lives were happy and we never met hyungwon and things were different and we died with no regrets  
> but that’s not the timeline we remember  
> and it’s not the timeline that can fix things_

Kihyun can’t curl up any closer to his laptop, but he tries, pushing the edge into his ribcage and tilting the monitor towards him and distorting his view of the display. The white ticker blinks in subtle blues and greens, the reds vibrant but drowned out by the adjacent black pixels.

Kihyun wishes he could see Jooheon, suddenly, wishes he understood where this loneliness came from, this ache for a person he’s never met but had already died for.

> when will we meet?_

Jooheon’s response comes a bit later than he’d like.

> when we’re all ready  
> just keep working on your equation and things will work themselves out naturally  
> your partner will most likely be doing the same, ok?_  
> okay._  
> we’ve been talking a while, we should probably stop  
> uh  
> so  
> when you meet your partner i’m not going to be able to contact you anymore_  
> what?? why??_  
> you know why_  
> what if we don’t get a chance to say goodbye?_

The ticker blinks at him. It’s as loveless as Kihyun’s past death.

> goodbye kihyun-hyung  
> i’ll see you soon_  
> promise?_  
> promise_  
> goodbye jooheon._

Kihyun’s fingers hover over the keys. It feels, almost, like he’s leaving something behind, something hazy that hangs in the figurative air between them. He should say something, but Jooheon beats him to the punch, thankfully.

> sleep tight_

Kihyun swallows the lump in his throat.

> good night._  
> _

  
  


#  **X.**

It’s his  _ worst _ fucking nightmare.

Minhyuk arrives to their room unexpectedly and practically rips the door off its hinges. Kihyun nearly falls off his bed.

_ “God, _ fuck, what’s the  _ matter _ with you?” he yells, scrambling to cover himself with his bedsheets.

“Your  _ boy,” _ Minhyuk hisses, kicking his shoes off haphazardly, “has been hanging out with Hyunwoo.”

Kihyun pulls the sheet up to his chin and bends his legs, knees to his chest. “Who is my ’boy’? What are you talking about?”

Minhyuk puts on that smile he uses when he’s trying to get someone he dislikes away from him. “Shin Hoseok, that’s what I’m talking about.”

Kihyun frowns. “What?”

“His birthday is March 1st, he likes spicy shin ramyun and weight training, and he’s been  _ shooting the shit _ with my boyfriend for the past two weeks, apparently.”

Cogs turn in Kihyun’s head. “Are you and Hyunwoo dating, now?”

_ “Not _ the point!”

“Right, right,” Kihyun turns onto his side to properly face Minhyuk. “Why are they suddenly friends? When did this, what, why the fuck does  _ Hyunwoo-hyung _ know him?”

Minhyuk’s eyes widen and he sits on the edge of Kihyun’s bed, ignoring his protests. “I think they literally met at lunch that one time.”

“They said ’hello’ and then separated,” Kihyun deadpans.

“I  _ know! _ But now they’re best friends or something?” Minhyuk grabs at the front of his shirt and, for a real moment, looks like he’s just been stabbed. “I went into the art room and they were sitting by Hyunwoo’s easel. They were on the same bench and they were so close and, and that guy had his hands all over him and Hyunwoo was just  _ staring, _ and  _ laughing, _ and, ugh—”

“Hey, hey,” Kihyun shuffles up a bit to reach an arm out and grab Minhyuk’s wrist. “Come on, I know what you’re thinking, take it easy.”

Minhyuk yanks his hand away from Kihyun, sucking his teeth in irritation. “Hyunwoo spent the whole afternoon gushing about him. I couldn’t fucking take it. Does he just, like, not  _ like _ me that much? He  _ never _ talks that much, about  _ anything, _ but then this  _ creep _ shows up and suddenly Hyunwoo is head-over-heels for him. God, I thought,” and Minhyuk’s face twists up again, but he suppresses it, “I thought he was just, just the kind of person you get to know slowly. I thought he just needed his space but, no, it’s just fucking  _ me, _ it’s always just  _ my _ shortcomings biting me in the fucking ass again.”

“Stop,” Kihyun sits up, pressing both hands on Minhyuk’s shoulder and chest. “Stop it, this has nothing to do with you. Hyunwoo  _ likes _ you.”

Minhyuk tries to shrug him off but Kihyun is resilient. “I  _ hate _ that guy,” he whines, and Kihyun can hear the tears struggling to breach. “I can’t stand him.”

“Believe me, I understand,” Kihyun empathises heavily with him, rubbing his shoulders. “He’s only here to make things difficult, but he can’t make Hyunwoo stop liking you. You’re pretty, and smart, and talented, and you’re both plagued by clairvoyant, alternate universe nightmares. Shin Hoseok’s got nothing on you.”

Minhyuk doesn’t cheer up. In fact, the muscles in his face tense up and he really looks like he might cry. Kihyun’s not exactly equipped to handle this, but he has experience doing it in the past so he buckles up. He can hear Minhyuk grind his teeth so he pinches his jaw with two fingers.

“Minhyuk-ah,” Kihyun coos, and Minhyuk turns to face him. His eyes are red but he looks more angry than hurt.

“I,” he starts, forcing sound out through his clenched teeth, but then he laughs and shakes his head, bitter and very clearly besides himself with anger. “I,” he tries again, but has to compose himself. He swallows. “I’ve dreamt about him.”

Kihyun massages his cheeks gently, willing the muscles in his jaw to relax. “Hyunwoo?”

“No,” Minhyuk bites.  _ “Him.” _

Kihyun’s eyebrows pitch up. “Shin Hoseok?”

Minhyuk smiles harder, but his teeth are covered and it’s nothing but malicious. “They have  _ history _ together.”

Kihyun’s brain runs double time trying to prevent him from reaching his conclusion, but he gets there anyway. “You’ve  _ dreamt _ of him? Specifically him? Are you  _ sure?” _

Minhyuk nods. His smile looks more and more like a grimace. “It was a few nights ago. You should have seen them.”

Kihyun shuffles himself closer, balanced on his knees, grabbing Minhyuk by both shoulders. “Minhyuk, I need you to think about this.”

“I used to think Hyunwoo in my dreams always had the same energy, like he was just  _ destined _ to be this chill, kind of neutral guy, you know? Just easy-going and hard to read but a, a silent, sweet person. But when  _ this _ guy was around him? Everything changed. You could practically feel it.”

Kihyun shakes him. “Are you  _ sure _ these weren’t just regular dreams mixed in with your, your memories? Your visions? Are you sure this was real?”

“Oh,” Minhyuk finally exposes his teeth, looking as bitter and betrayed as ever. “I’m  _ sure. _ I could tell. It was real, all of it. The space between them, the-the the, the  _ looks _ they gave each other. They were  _ kendo _ partners, total meatheads, both of them, and you could just  _ see _ how much they cared about each other. You know?”

Kihyun pulls his hands off of Minhyuk and puts them in his hair. “And, and you’re certain it was him?” he asks a bit desperately. This can’t be happening, not like this. Not after the brief shitstorm that happened between him and Hoseok.

Minhyuk wipes his eye with the back of his hand, catching a tear before it falls. “Hyunwoo, Hyunwoo told me a long time ago that he felt like, like, like, like he was missing something. That he only felt differently when he met Hyungwon, I thought,” Minhyuk wipes his other eye, “I thought that meant he found what he was looking for. I thought that his energy was just… just this, unreachable friendliness. I thought that that was just the way he was but when I saw him with that  _ guy _ that part of him was gone.” Minhyuk covers his mouth to hold himself back, but this allows a tear to make its way to his cheek.

Kihyun struggles to contain his own personal crisis as the weight of Minhyuk’s words settle on him. “Minhyuk, you’re jumping to conclusions.”

Minhyuk disregards him, scrubbing the water from his cheeks. “I’m _ not. _ It was him,” his voice breaks but he still looks angry. “He’s like a different person. I thought, I thought he was just, just the way he usually is but when he’s with Hoseok—when he  _ was _ with Hoseok—he bloomed into someone completely new and  _ happy _ and I, I-I’m realising that the way he is with me and other people is just how he acts when he’s unsatisfied or, or, or when he feels like he’s missing something and that  _ guy _ is his something.”

Kihyun looks on helplessly, hands gripping Minhyuk’s upper arms. “You could be mistaken,” he tries, but knows it’s futile. If Minhyuk says it’s real, if Hoseok really is a part of Hyunwoo’s past, then…

Minhyuk turns to Kihyun. He’s not faking a smile anymore, and he’s not trying to keep his tears in. His hand flutters over his face, fruitlessly trying to soothe the burn in his sinuses. “They looked  _ really _ happy together.”

The dam finally breaks and Minhyuk covers his face with both hands, sobbing gently into his palms. Kihyun pulls him closer, into his chest, and rests his forehead against his friend’s temple. He rubs at his back and his shoulder, trying to soothe his friend’s shaking and whimpering.

“I love him,” Minhyuk cries, a gentle whisper from behind his hands. “I knew I shouldn’t have but I did anyway.”

Kihyun squeezes him. “You can still love him.”

Minhyuk only cries harder, and Kihyun grips him tighter, shushing him gently and running a hand through his hair. He isn’t sure if he’s trying to quell Minhyuk’s shaking or his own, so he just keeps his friend close, pushing away the horrifying realisation that Shin Hoseok might be closer to them than he thought.

It really is his worst nightmare.

  
  


#  **XI.**

Summer isn’t exactly his favourite time of year. It’s too humid, too muggy and gross and sticky. It gets worse when he visits his relatives down in Jeju, where the ocean spray and the salt in the air makes his clothing cling to his body. His uncle gives him trouble for growing his hair so long, but he got it cut not too long ago and he’s only just grown his bangs out the way he wants them.

Kihyun gets a break from his brother’s tendencies and his cousins trying to get him to spin them around in circles to head down to the convenience store. His great-aunt is sharing her famous barbeque sauce recipe with her new daughter-in-law and needs a restock on brown sugar, ginger, and sesame oil. Kihyun jumped up to take the job and now, blessed, stands at the counter with the ingredients bundled in his arms, thoroughly checked for any malicious activity. He’s a little bitter that he won’t be in the kitchen helping out and ensuring nothing weird gets into the samgyetang, but he’s a teen boy and can only handle so much babying and gossip.

The clerk rings him up slowly when she realises he’s the only one in the store. She looks to be about his brother’s age, just a bit older than he is. He wonders if he has a shot, but she passes him his bag and only barely smiles. He leaves without trying to talk to her.

The summer sun is low but intense, shadows stretched out far down the road. Kihyun swats away a fly and bounces his shopping bag against the side of his leg as he takes his time returning to his great aunt and uncle’s house. He figures he can spare a few minutes to sit and rest, so he cuts across the lawn of one of the bigger houses facing the cliff edge and scrambles down the incline. He knocks pebbles out of his way as he walks, sending a tiny torrent of rocks and dirt down into the water.

He doesn’t hate coming to visit his extended family like this; he actually loves being coddled and pinched and complemented by his aunts and cousins. Lord knows he doesn’t get that at home with his immediate family. He’s kind of a wunderkind and he knows it, even if he feels like he’s burning out before he even hits twenty. But he needs a break from everyone once in a while, just enough for him to feel like he can sit in his skin without itching to run off somewhere. Sometimes you just need to  _ go, _ y’know?

Kihyun plucks a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, glad he was able to smuggle them all the way down here. He taps one out with quick, practised motions, not really sure who he’s acting all cool for, and fishes his lighter from his front pocket. He thinks, maybe, he’s spent the last few years on edge. He really just needs an outlet. The nicotine doesn’t help just yet, but he’s hoping the placebo will kick in any day now.

Two years ago he’d bit his nails down to the extent that they bled on a daily basis until his father hit him across the back of his head and told him he’d get warts. After that, he decided to learn how to count cards after reading about it in an old book. He ended up getting so good at it that his parents confiscated all his decks once his brother tattled on him and made him put his energy into his studies. Nine months ago it was, oddly enough, mints, stashed in metal tins in his bags, his pants, his drawers, until he was going through dozens in a single day and just about gave himself an ulcer. It’s only obvious he’d start smoking, so he figured he’d get started early. It’s only been a month but he’s gotten pretty good at it, if you  _ can _ really get good at breathing.

Kihyun is crouched by the bank, partially shielded from the setting sun but at the mercy of the ocean breeze, cupping his hand around the tip of his cigarette while he struggles to light it, when he’s aware of a subtle nausea, an ache behind his tongue. He furrows his brow, keeping completely still while he waits for it to pass.

“Ugh, wow,” a voice sounds off. The rocks cascade down the bank and into the salt water again. “What are you doing here?”

Kihyun pulls his lighter from the lit tip of his cig, watching it glow bright red while he sucks it down. The owner of the voice gains his footing and looks around, holding his arm over his face to block out the low sun and look out at the sea. The ocean is pretty, green and orange and constantly shifting and glimmering. Kihyun exhales, letting out a soft stream of smoke and sitting back against the bank. His stuffs his lighter away.

“I’m just taking a break,” he answers. Kihyun casts a sideways look at Hyungwon while he’s preoccupied with the scenery. He’s wearing his usual outfit, that odd sweater vest underneath his blazer, neat brown oxford shoes, his hair parted to the right. Kihyun realises he’s running out of time to catch up to this guy in height. He wonders how many more years of growth he has left.

Hyungwon turns to him, then squints. “You’re smoking, now.” He sounds disappointed, but it bounces right off of Kihyun. No one can master disappointment like his parents can, even if it is mostly out of discipline.

“It’s cool,” he insists, pulling in another drag. He doesn’t really care about the consequences. It’s not like he’s going to be training his voice much anymore. “I’m cool.”

Hyungwon hums in what could be disinterest, but then lowers himself down to sit on the bank. Kihyun shuffles closer to him, rests his elbow on the older man’s thigh and leans into his side. Hyungwon wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him flush up against his ribcage, eyes trained on the glittering water.

They stay that way. Kihyun can only measure time by the declining length of his cigarette. He ashes it between his knees and tries to keep his smoke away from the two of them. If the smell bothers Hyungwon, he makes no indication. He just stares passively out to the sea. It’s one of the things Kihyun really likes about him. Most adults nitpick at him and swear their opinions on what he  _ should _ be and how he  _ should _ act are to be taken as fact. Hyungwon just lets him exist, lets him grow. It’s refreshing. He leans into him further until he’s practically in his lap, head tilted sideways and cigarette balanced carefully between Hyungwon’s knees. He ashes it again and figures it’s gone down far enough. He tosses it into the sea.

“So why are you here?” he asks, twisting himself onto his back to look up at Hyungwon. The man himself drops his head to look at him, his bangs hanging down and almost brushing against Kihyun’s head. Kihyun wonders if he can get away with sneaking in a kiss but decides against it.

“I’m not allowed to just visit you?” Hyungwon asks, cocking his head. The direct eye contact starts making Kihyun uncomfortable so he turns away, staring out at the sea again.

“I wasn’t going to do anything,” he mutters.

Hyungwon blinks, not entirely understanding, until it clicks. He glances back up to the sparkling waves for only a second. “I just wanted to see you. I swear.”

Kihyun chews the inside of his lip, mentally filing that statement away. “I can’t stay out here for long, anyway,” Kihyun admits. “I have to go back to my aunt’s house soon.” He kicks the plastic bag by his feet for effect.

“Mm,” Hyungwon hums and they lapse back into silence. They listen to the ocean and watch the sun get lower for a few minutes before he sighs. “I have bad news.”

Kihyun sits up to look at him. Hyungwon keeps his arm slung on his shoulder. 

“You always have bad news,” Kihyun jokes, but swallows the worry down. “What is it, hyung?”

Hyungwon opens his mouth, but then pauses. “You  _ know _ I’m not your hyung.”

“Sure. What’s the bad news?”

Hyungwon presses his lips together into a terse line. “I’m leaving.”

“You always say that, too,” Kihyun leans in, accusatory. He lowers his eyelids, his mouth pulling at one side. “But you always come back.”

“I mean it this time. I’m going somewhere and I don’t think I’ll make it out.”

Kihyun tilts his head suspiciously. “Where are you going?”

Hyungwon purses his lips. “Uhh,” he says, and then doesn’t say anything else.

Kihyun stares at him in silence for a full minute. “Is this more time travel stuff?”

“Yes, technically.”

He smiles, then lays back down and rests his chin in Hyungwon’s lap. “Are you gonna die?”

“Eventually,” Hyungwon answers automatically, then thinks a bit. “Actually, I’m not sure anymore.”

Kihyun snorts. “You really need to get your life together, hyung.”

Hyungwon chuckles, and messes up Kihyun’s hair. “I’m trying,” he insists. “I’m really trying.”

There’s something in his tone of voice that makes Kihyun lift his head up. He and Hyungwon can’t do much but look at each other. There’s something somber in his expression. It’s terrifying.

“Where are you going?” Kihyun asks again. He rests his chin on his hyung’s chest, right against the divot between two of his ribs. It’s an awkward position, Hyungwon leaned all the way over, resting on one hand, while Kihyun glues himself to his side.

“I’m not sure,” Hyungwon admits. He runs his hand through Kihyun’s hair again. There’s something unusually fond in his touch, and it scares Kihyun even more.

_ “Why _ are you going?” he tries, and Hyungwon’s hand pauses.

He looks away. “I’m trying something new. I’ve been running for a long time and it hasn’t worked out so well. So, now I’m going to try hiding.”

Kihyun doesn’t need to ask. He knows about the people who are chasing after Hyungwon. He knows what type of danger he’s in. “How long can you hide?”

Hyungwon quirks his mouth to the side. “Forever, really.”

“Forever?”

“Forever,” he repeats. “But I’m hoping I won’t have to.”

“Can’t you hop forward in the, time… stream, or whatever, and tell me how long you’ll be gone?” Kihyun struggles to fabricate a solution.

Hyungwon grins. “No, it doesn’t work that way. It’ll be safer for both of us if I do it this way.”

“You’re just  _ leaving? _ So suddenly?”

“Haven’t you asked enough questions?” he laughs. Kihyun just frowns at him, so he sighs and lets his hand fall from the boy’s hair. “Look, I can’t stay. I’d just be putting you in jeopardy.”

Kihyun feels something angry burn inside him, but he stomps it out. “Then take me with you.”

“No,” Hyungwon nearly snaps, but then exhales. “I can’t do that to you.”

Kihyun bristles like a porcupine, pulling his chin from Hyungwon’s chest and resting fully on his hands. He has questions, he needs answers, but he doesn’t know how to get from point A to point B. “Hyung,” he starts, then drops his head because, suddenly, his nose burns and he isn’t sure why. “Hyung, don’t… Please don’t do this to me. You know I can’t… you can’t leave me here by myself.”

Hyungwon gives him a piteous look.

“I think,” he says, trailing off a bit. He stares out at the sea, as if the answer is hidden somewhere in the waves. Kihyun glances up, follows his gaze, but doesn’t see anything. “I think I can visit you one last time.” He bites his lip. “No. I  _ have _ to see you one last time.”

Kihyun blinks, gently, and leans in a bit. There’s a pull in his chest that feels like equal parts hope and heartbreak. “When? Why?”

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” Hyungwon admits. He locks eyes with his temporally younger friend, expression unreadable. “I don’t want to say goodbye, but I can’t undo everything that’s been done. I need help. From you, and from the others.”

Kihyun only has approximate knowledge of “the others”. But he knows they’re somewhere out there, occupying pockets of Hyungwon’s time when Kihyun can’t. “I’ll do it.”

Hyungwon smiles and ruffles his hair, and Kihyun recoils. “You’re not even going to ask what it is?”

Kihyun snaps at his hand like a shark and Hyungwon yanks it back. “I don’t care what it is. I trust you.”

Hyungwon hesitates to glance back at the sea over Kihyun’s shoulder, and the look of adoration and conflict on his face drives Kihyun nuts. He wants to swoop in like a romance novel love interest, like one of those cool, stoic guys who wins the heroine over with their mysterious charm. He wonders if he’s old enough, now, but Hyungwon beats him to the punch and presses a hand to the back of Kihyun’s neck. Their gazes meet and Hyungwon’s is unreadable, gentle, and serious all at the same time. He pulls Kihyun closer. Kihyun’s heart does a flip and his eyes fall closed, because he’s been embarrassing himself by fantasising about this for years.

Kihyun leans forward, lips parted and breathing stalled, and is met with Hyungwon’s collar bone, poking through the fabric on his shirt, while Hyungwon pulls him into a seriously sincere hug. Kihyun stares, numb, at the fabric, his mouth open enough to get a good taste of cotton. He isn’t sure what he expected.

Hyungwon tucks him under his chin. “I don’t know how to tell you how much you mean to me,” he murmurs, rubbing Kihyun’s shoulder. “I don’t know how to put it in words. I want to be alongside you and the others for as long as we can manage.”

It’s not a kiss but it still pulls at his chest, and Kihyun still wraps his arms around Hyungwon’s skinny torso. He still breathes him in like he just grew his lungs, that euphoric scent that keeps him grounded. “Don’t go,” he whines.

“Don’t you have to go back to your aunt’s house?” Hyungwon asks, and Kihyun’s eyes pop open. He realises the sun has gotten low, so he forces himself to his feet and snags the plastic bag. Hyungwon laughs and stands as well.

They clamber back up the incline, sending an avalanche of pebbles into the sea, and cut diagonally across the yard towards the street. They speed-walk in relative silence, their only ambience the sound of their footsteps and of Kihyun’s plastic bag crinkling in his hand. When they crest over a hill and spot his aunt’s house at the bottom of it, at the end of the street, Kihyun pauses to catch his breath and stare out at the house.

He swallows. “Hyung?”

Hyungwon hasn’t left yet, so he stands behind him and places both of his hands on Kihyun’s shoulders. “I’ll come back.”

“When?” he asks, too afraid to turn around.

“Soon,” he swears, and pulls Kihyun into a proper back hug, tucking his head under his chin.

“And after that?” Kihyun asks. His voice is desperate. He can see his brother as he chaperones their younger cousins, helping them pull something across the grass. A wagon? A toy car?

“The rest is up to you,” Hyungwon says, and a wave of nausea runs across the back of Kihyun’s throat. He’s afraid to swallow, so he just stands still at the apex of the hill, feeling the breeze at his nape.

His older brother spots him in the distance, and waves an arm to him. Kihyun makes the rest of way down the hill and to his relatives’ lawn. His brother steps over their cousin and his little plastic train to scold him for taking his time, but Kihyun dashes to his left and runs away, escaping into the backyard unbothered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thanks to everyone who gave the first chapter a read. This chapter features some insight into Kihyun's recent and distant past relationships. This scene with Hyungwon was actually the third part I ever wrote for the story. I have a lot of fond summer memories from my youth, and I wanted to try and get that sort of serene coziness into the story. Also, if the console logs are completely illegible, please tell me. I'd like to keep them like this, but if it's hurting readership I won't mind changing it. :)
> 
> I know you're here for the story, but I'm also particularly fond of the piece i drew for this chapter. I wanted to add some more bloom effects, but I'm trying not to overload my images with too much unnecessary processing. I settle that urge by not worrying about colour choice too much.
> 
> Thanks again for reading. See you in another two weeks. :)


	3. 1 - 3

#  **XII.**

Kihyun thinks about it and, yep, he’s dropping out.

Actually, he’s skipping all his classes this week to go over his work and make sure he knows addition and didn’t fuck up his “personal project”. He doesn’t bother telling his professors because he doesn’t really have an excuse outside of spacetime-paradox mania and emotional stress, so he just takes the penalties. If everything goes well, he’ll find Hyungwon before the year ends and, honestly, after that, who cares?

His decision to lock himself in his flat was strengthened by the fact that there’s a nasty bug going around. It’s a combination of final exam stress and a campus loaded with young adults who are too nervous and hyper focused to properly medicate themselves outside of illegal Adderall sales and caffeine addictions. He’s not going to risk his own crappy immune system. Kihyun’s got vitamin C tablets and Vivarin and locked windows. Fuck it.

He’s four days into his adventure when there’s a knock at his door. Minhyuk is off doing final consultations with a professor and isn’t due to be back in a few hours, so he’s immediately wary. He slides away from his desk, careful to tiptoe over the mess of papers on his floor, and peeks through the peephole.

Oh. Oh shit.

He steps away from the door. It’s Thursday, so he’s missed both of this week’s physics classes. It makes sense that Kang would send someone after him, especially with it being the prep week before finals start, but  _ this _ is kind of cruel. He steps away again and tilts to look into the wall mirror. He didn’t properly get dressed this morning so he looks like a disaster, but at least his hair is brushed. He checks his clothes for stains, then thinks for a moment. He pulls open his top drawer and pulls out a face mask, snapping the loops around his ears. His glasses are sitting on his desk, so he goes without them, unlocking his front door.

He pretends to be surprised.

“Oh, hey,” he greets, running his hand through his hair.

Dayoung grins and bows her head. “Hi, Kihyun-sunbae! Are you okay? Everyone’s been worried about you.”

“I’m fine, what are you doing here?” he cocks his head as he lampshades her concern. He hopes he’s doing a good job of hiding the state of his home from her.

“Sorry for showing up so suddenly,” she apologises. She holds out a folder and he takes it from her gently. “Professor Kang asked me to give this to you. He said your final exam is going to be made from the extra credit concept questions, so I brought you your last two tests to study from.”

She smiles warmly, and Kihyun can’t stop himself from feeling fond of her. “Thank you, that was really generous.”

She waves the idea off. “Nah, it’s the least I could do after all the help you gave me.”

“Oh!” he exclaims, tucking the folder under his arm. “How did you do on your last test, by the way?”

She beams and rests her chin in the crook between her thumb and forefinger, framing her face confidently. “Oh, it was no big deal. Just… a ninety-eight!”

Kihyun claps, genuinely impressed. “That’s a serious improvement, wow! I’m proud.” Dayoung grins wider, so Kihyun follows up. “But why isn’t it a one hundred?”

She pouts to one side. “I forgot to square  _ t _ again.”

He shakes his head slowly. “Rookie mistake.”

“I’ll remember on the final,” she reassures, and they share a chuckle. Kihyun stands in front of her, staring down at the floor while she does the same. His neighbours drop something and the thud echoes through their walls.

“Well,” he begins, adjusting his position. “I hope you do well on your finals. If you need any last-minute refreshers, you have my number.”

“Actually,” she says, looking back up to him. “Uh. Next Saturday, after finals, a bunch of friends and I are going into Hongdae to hang out.” She rocks on her heel a bit, casually looking away. “And we’re all supposed to bring a friend to liven up the atmosphere. I was wondering if you were maybe interested in being my plus-one?”

Kihyun is touched that he’s getting invited to some kind of casual mixer. “That sounds fun. Who’s going?”

“Mostly some friends from my year and a few freshmen.”

“Oh,” he smirks behind his mask. “So you’re just inviting me so you can get clout for knowing a cool upperclassman, is that it?”

He watches the shock and panic slowly emerge in her expression as she shakes her hands. “No, no way! Not at all, I just—”

“I’m kidding,” he chuckles, and only laughs more when she kicks him in the side of the leg.

“Sunbae, don’t  _ do _ that!” She kicks him again. “I’m trying to be nice!” She kicks him a third time and he laughs even harder. “Now you’re uninvited.”

“No,” he manages to stay, stifling his giggles. “No, I’m sorry. Please, I’d love to come clubbing with you and your friends.”

She crosses her arms in faux refusal for a second, but then her smile peeks through her stern look. “I didn’t say we were clubbing.”

“You’re going into Hongdae on a Saturday,” he says, matter-of-factly.

Dayoung doesn’t have a rebuttal to that. “Okay, well, we might hit one or two places.”

He smiles knowingly. “Thought so. What time are you going?”

“We’re meeting by the subway station at 7:00. The one by the 7-Eleven.”

“Oh we’re starting early,” he comments. “Is this gonna be a twelve-hour party?”

“I’m planning on crashing at midnight,” Dayoung admits with a shrug, and Kihyun throws his head back and laughs.

“Alright, 7-Eleven at seven, got it.”

She grins and claps her hands together. “Great! I’ll text you any new details, okay?” He holds up a thumb and she nods, bowing quickly. He returns the action. “See you, sunbae.”

Kihyun watches her bound away for a moment, incredibly fond, before something registers in his mind. “Ah, hey, Dayoung, wait,” he calls out, and she whirls around from the top of the steps. He pushes a stray shoe into his doorway to prop it open and approaches her.

“You’re not gonna push me down the stairs, are you?” she asks, holding onto the railing.

“Not this time,” he shakes his head. “Um, you’re… friends with that guy, right?” He shifts from one foot to the other. “Shin Hoseok?”

She blinks. “Oh, yeah. Why?”

Completely out of his control, his voice drops to a whisper. “Is he coming?”

Dayoung cocks her head to the side, not understanding his intentions. “Oh, no, sorry. I asked him to come but Hoseok-oppa said he doesn’t drink.”

Kihyuns hums.

“Why do you ask, sunbae?”

“Just wondering.” He steps backwards, hand held up in a goodbye, and disappears back into his flat. Dayoung stares, wondering what that was about.

By the time Minhyuk returns, hours later, Kihyun has made a nest of discarded math papers and haphazardly-tossed clothes. Minhyuk leaves his shoes by the door and steps over some crumpled jeans.

“You’re being crazy again,” he warns, approaching his roommate. Kihyun is standing in front of Minhyuk’s full-length mirror, holding a flannel shirt to his chest with one hand and frowning.

“I’m going to a social event in a week and a half,” he states, not even bothering to glance over. Minhyuk stands behind him.

“Take a shower.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Kihyun, you’re doing that thing you do when you’re restless,” Minhyuk sighs, locking his fingers together and resting them on Kihyun’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Kihyun answers tossing the shirt aside and holding up another one. This one has a deep V cut into its neck. Minhyuk wonders how long he’s owned it. “Let me be restless. Let me be crazy for a little bit.”

Minhyuk rests his chin on his hands, the weight tilting Kihyun towards his side. “Kihyun,” he starts, voice whining a bit.

No one speaks for another moment, so the two stand in the awkward, empty silence, physically touching but oddly far from each other.

“I’m worried about you,” Minhyuk finally admits. “It feels like you’re going backwards.”

“I’m fine,” Kihyun sighs.

Minhyuk, unsatisfied, tilts his head, temple against his friend. “Please try not to do anything too dangerous,” he says. “And maybe after this, try to just, relax? Decompress, put your binder away.”

“I’m not done working with my binder,” Kihyun answers. He presses the crook of a finger to his lip, staring intently at the shirt. “And I’m not going to do anything dangerous, okay?”

Minhyuk mumbles. “Is there gonna be alcohol?”

Kihyun inhales, clearly annoyed with the question, but lets his breath out in a single, slow exhale. “I’ll be fine.”

Minhyuk says nothing.

Kihyun finally glances at his roommate through his reflection. “How was your consultation?”

Minhyuk closes his eyes. “Fine. My professor thinks my paintings lack ’depth’ but I’ve shown improvement or something.”

“Did you show her your vision paintings?”

He nods. “Yeah. And she’s totally right. They’re two dimensional.”

“They’re paintings,” Kihyun jokes, turning his eyes back to the clothes hanging besides the mirror. “They’re usually two dimensional.”

“Yeah. But they still feel fake.”

Kihyun chews on these words. “Do  _ you _ think they’re fake?”

Minhyuk shrugs. “I’m honestly not sure anymore.”

Kihyun takes a chance. “How are things with Hyunwoo?”

He shrugs again. “The entire art department has a flu right now, so we're both just waiting to get sick.”

Kihyun tosses the deep V shirt away as well. “Do you wanna come next weekend? You could probably use a break.”

Minhyuk doesn’t open his eyes. He stands up, slides his hands from Kihyun’s shoulder, and walks towards his side of their flat. “No thanks. I think I’m just gonna catch up on my sleep.”

Kihyun looks after him, fingers drumming on the side of his thigh. He watches Minhyuk pluck a pill bottle from his bedside table, a sleeping aid the name of which Kihyun’s forgotten, and tap three tiny tablets out on his palm. He returns to his reflection just as Minhyuk is knocking them back. “Tell me if you change your mind.”

“Mm-hm.”

  
  


#  **XIII.**

> hey_  
> hey._

Kihyun is lying on his side on the floor of the library, in his favourite corner. It’s a Wednesday morning but his class was cancelled, so he tested the water to see if Jooheon would contact him. Sure enough, his laptop came to life on its own and his favourite cyber-spy got a hold of him. He pulls his laptop to rest on his chest and sets his magic cube down. He’s up to a 5x5x5 cube and trying to work his way up to something stupid, like a triangular pyramid, or whatever the fuck a skewb is.

> no class?_  
> nope. i’m taking a break.  
> i thought you might be watching me lol._  
> hey i’m not always stalking you_  
> idk i’ve only been sitting here for about fifteen minutes._  
> listen  
> if you wanna convince yourself i’ve just been staring wistfully and dreamily at my monitor waiting for you to be available to me then go ahead  
> :P_

Kihyun grins and lets his head fall back. He sends the nearby ceiling camera a coy look before rolling onto his stomach and setting his laptop in front of him.

> aw, jooheonnie you don’t have to be shy~  
> i know i look great.  
> even through grainy security cam footage._  
> the quality’s actually not that bad  
> i can’t see tiny details but i can zoom in a little to make things out  
> like i can see you have a weird little rubix cube with you_

Kihyun reaches over and plucks his puzzle toy up between two fingers. It’s pretty big and his grip on it isn’t great, so he switches to balancing it on his palm while he types with his other hand.

> well 1: it’s not “rubix”  
> it’s “rubik’s”._  
> whatever_  
> and 2: this is actually a professor’s cube._  
> you got it from a professor?_  
> no lol.  
> it’s called a professor’s cube because instead of being a three cube it’s a five cube._  
> i can’t even figure out how to solve a regular one_  
> it’s actually not that hard! i can totally walk you through it._  
> i dunno  
> i don’t think i have the brain for that stuff_  
> no such thing.  
> anyone can learn anything with enough time.  
> like maybe if you’re not used to thinking in three dimensions it’s a little daunting  
> but it’s all really just thinking ahead and moving things out of the way  
> and like breaking down the cube into planes.  
> or simpler cubes.  
> like every cube comes with six squares permanently solved and you work around them.  
> with the three cube you start with the inside of the top layer and then the outside and then work your way down layer by layer.  
> with the five you do the same but there’s also a middle ring between the inside and the outside.  
> so you technically have to keep track of more squares but you

Kihyun pauses, then sets his puzzle down.

> i’m sorry.  
> i lost you didn’t i._  
> yes but i was going to let you keep typing_  
> wow lol i’m sorry i got a little excited._  
> it’s fine  
> you can keep going if you want  
> i’ll definitely not understand but i’ll be doing a lot of nodding and squinting_  
> thanks but i think i’m good now._  
> so is this like  
> your newest obsession_  
> oh it’s not an obsession yet.  
> i’m not losing any steam on learning about time crystals any time soon.  
> i think i can safely say this just a hobby._  
> idk you said that when you got into foreign pro wrestling and stayed up for a week watching every single available wrestlemania twice_  
> that’s different.  
> i did that because i’m gay._  
> lmfaooooooo_  
> also a single week is nothing.  
> i used to spend like. months on new hyper-specific habits and interests as a kid  
> and things occasionally escalated to the point where i’d end up in a hospital because of it._  
> shit really? what did you do?_

Kihyun rubs his hand over the crease along the inside of his elbow. He vaguely recalls one autumn in his early teens where he was pretty much constantly picking and scratching at his hands and arms. It ended up lasting until the end of spring, until the weather heated up too much for him to justify wearing long sleeves. Thinking back, he can’t even remember his thought process behind doing stuff like that, just an ominous feeling that his hands had to be doing  _ something, _ even if that something was harmful or unproductive. Eventually, it stopped feeling harmful at all, started feeling like a natural habit, an almost deserving consequence.

He ended up quitting cold turkey and moved on to something else, but not before his brother found out and nearly kicked his ass. He had the decency to keep it a secret when Kihyun convinced him he was phasing out of it, but things between them never really stayed the same after that.

> nothing too serious or malicious or anything.  
> just stupid stuff that i focused on instead of my own well-being.  
> like here’s some fun trivia i’ve never told anyone about before._  
> oh boy, exclusive content_  
> yeah so apparently when i was a kid one day i refused to eat anything but plain rice and celery  
> and then that just kinda lasted for five years._  
> what?!?!_  
> i was not a healthy child lmfao._

It’s only a partial lie. He actually preferred to eat  _ absolutely fucking nothing _ for almost all his childhood, and never really found anything to top that preference, and it became a real, permanent problem, but the finer details about his upbringing as a “troubled child” are tedious, and his family has done a really good job of making sure he feels ashamed about every hospital trip he’s ever needed.

> what do you mean five years?? how old were you_  
> it went on until i was like eleven so i guess it happened when i was six?  
> god you should have seen me.  
> i look like a doll in all my childhood photos._  
> wait wait wait hold on  
> you can’t live off of rice and celery  
> in fact i’m pretty sure that’s the quickest way to die_  
> i mean i ate other stuff when prompted  
> or forced  
> but i never really wanted to.  
> if i could get out of eating properly i absolutely did  
> even if i was actually hungry?  
> i don’t even remember wondering why i was doing it, i just learned to dread putting food in my mouth.  
> i thought it wasn’t that big a deal but, unsurprisingly, having an aversion to most foods as a child is pretty dangerous._  
> how did your parents end up getting you to eat properly_  
> doctors, yelling, and then my mom started teaching me to cook and i learned to deal with it._  
> jesus christ hyung  
> it’s not like that now, is it?_  
> i mean  
> now i’m older and i know what i can eat and what i can’t.  
> i’m just picky i guess._  
> i’m glad you sorted that out  
> but it all sounds like something really scary for a little kid to do  
> your poor parents_

Kihyun sticks his tongue in cheek. He drums his index finger on the edge of his laptop for a few seconds before he starts typing.

> you know it wasn’t really easy for me either._  
> i believe it  
> maybe that’s why you’re so short now..._  
> jooheon._  
> :)?_  
> i’m gonna kick your ass._  
> oh really?  
> how much do you weigh_  
> literally go fuck yourself!!!_  
> XD XD XD_  
> i’ll have you know my height is hereditary and perfectly average!!!_  
> lmfao i’m sorry  
> i didn’t mean to pick on you, honestly  
> but all jokes aside you telling me this story really makes me worry more about you  
> like maybe your addictive personality is a little dangerous_  
> don’t worry about it.  
> i grew out of crazy shit like that a while ago.  
> puzzle cubes are just geometry._  
> okaaaay  
> just don’t let the geometry take over your life_  
> lol i’ll try.  
> so hey!  
> did you talk to your mom yet?_  
> let’s go back to talking about wrestlemania_  
> soooo that means no._  
> hyung  
> i really don’t want to do this today  
> please_  
> alright alright  
> did you talk to your dad?_  
> i’m going to end the conversation now_  
> kidding! i’m kidding!  
> ok i won’t bring up your family stuff, i promise.  
> but i’m rooting for you, ok?_  
> thanks  
> it’s just  
> stressful  
> like i’ve been worrying abt this for weeks now and talking it out isn’t going to do anything but make me more anxious  
> and i feel like everyone has been trying to get me to talk about this except for the two people i actually need to talk to  
> it just feels kind of like i’m trapped  
> and i kind of like being able to get away from all that  
> talking to you and stuff_

Kihyun finds himself grinning, his head resting on his hand. He stops himself from kicking his feet like a giddy teenager, but just barely.

> i’m glad i can distract you then ;P_  
> speaking of distractions  
> how was your birthday party on saturday_  
> exhausting. i think minhyuk and i are still drunk._  
> lololol  
> did you get anything special?_  
> well i got a pretty nice watch from my dad._  
> oooh what kind_  
> its an old invicta.  
> it’s fucking monstrous but kind of vintage and makes me feel like an esteemed billionaire sugar daddy._  
> hot_  
> hell yeah it is.  
> someone sent me a cute little cake too.  
> i think an aunt or something.  
> we were fucking trashed by the time we got home and it was a welcome sunday morning dinner_  
> oh a cake?  
> was it a little chocolate cake with white and orange frosting  
> kind of looked like ebichu?_  
> yyyyes?????????  
> you really are always watching me aren’t you!_  
> lolol nooo i wasn’t watching_  
> so how did  
> wait  
> did you send me that hamtaro cake?????_  
> its not hamtaro it’s ebichu_  
> you sent me a hamster cake for my birthday??  
> you?????  
> mister “don’t wipe your ass more than twice it’s risky and dangerous” ???_  
> this is a really weird way of thanking me, hyung_

Kihyun has given up on keeping his legs still, his feet kicking gently back and forth as he gapes at his computer. He and Minhyuk thought it was odd when an unmarked cake was delivered to their flat on his birthday. But by the time they wandered back home the next morning, already fighting off a hangover with the last drops of their booze, they disregarded all suspicion and ate it like a pair of wolves.

> wow, i can’t believe you bought me cake.  
> thank you, you didn’t have to do that._  
> i wanted to  
> did you enjoy it_  
> i did! minhyuk, too.  
> why a hamster though_  
> you look like one_  
> n  
> no?_  
> you do_  
> i don’t look like a goddamn hamster._  
> you kind of do!  
> either a hamster or like a malicious fox_  
> i cannot believe you.  
> how dare you say this to me when i have no ammunition against you because i don’t know what you look like._  
> it’s not an insult!  
> lmao you’re very cute  
> even through grainy security camera footage_  
> wow thanks.  
> i love being compared to rodents._  
> <3_

Kihyun taps his chin with his index finger a few times, remembering something.

> did you also send one for minhyuk?_  
> ? what, a cake?_  
> yeah._  
> no, i only sent one for you on your birthday  
> did two arrive?_  
> no, his is a little before mine and we got a mysterious cake then, too.  
> i guess his really was from a relative._  
> probably_  
> anyway  
> new topic  
> you’ll never guess who i saw getting a coffee this morning._  
> a celebrity??_  
> nooooo  
> well i mean actually probably.  
> because the unis fucking huge and i stopped keeping up with pop culture like a century ago.  
> but no!  
> former assistant dean_  
> on campus??????_  
> on campus!!!  
> getting a coffee from our tom n toms!!!!_  
> theres like a billion of them in the city why was he at this one?  
> is he even allowed on the campus anymore_  
> apparently.  
> i’m guessing he was nostalgic for some of that good old corporate coffee.  
> either that or he was here to meet  
> someone._  
> no_  
> >.>  
> <.<  
> so dr lee yoonseol was absent from class today……_  
> oh my god you can’t be serious_  
> the email said she had a sudden emergency and would only be taking the day off.  
> i personally think she was off getting dicked._  
> don’t say that!!!  
> it’s probably true but you don’t just say it!_  
> sorry i’ll censor myself from now on.  
> hey btw can you do me a favour?_  
> maybe_  
> i was in the shop for like two minutes so idk what happened after i left._  
> stop  
> are you about to ask me to go through your campus security footage to see if they met up_  
> ………  
> yes?_  
> hyung that’s a giant invasion of privacy and extremely risky_  
> damn.  
> i understand._  
> and tbh if i wasn’t already doing exactly that i would scold you more_

Kihyun covers his mouth.

> you’re the only person in this city i can trust._  
> i know_  
> jooheon-ah  
> i literally love you._  
> you better_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone. This is a weird update, sorry about that.
> 
> This week hit me hard, unexpectedly. I was in the middle of the illustration for this chapter when uh??? stuff happened??? I wasn't in the proper headspace to finish it and I didn't! that's on me, I should have been a bit more diligent, but as i spend most of my time working on editing future chapters and set the illustrations aside as a kind of reward, I ended up in a corner. So, I've resolved that, instead of releasing this section without the picture (it's a really nice one and I was looking forward to doing it) I've split this chapter in half.
> 
> The next half, with the illu, will be posted next week. It's a good section of the story! It's probably my second or third favourite sequence.  
> Then, a week after that (two weeks from now) I'll put up the next chapter in its entirety, and we'll still be on schedule.  
> After that, I might go on a brief one or two week hiatus, depending on some personal stuff, but that's up in the air right now.
> 
> I talk a bit about stuff like this on my twitter, so if you have any interest in keeping up with the story and getting a few behind the scenes tidbits, you can check that out. Anyway, thanks again for reading. I'll try to be more diligent with my posting schedule from now on. Enjoy your weekend. :)


	4. 1 - 4

#  **XIV.**

Finals finally end. Everyone lives through it, even that one freshman who passed out near the end of her statistics exam and had to be put on IVs. (She later found out she managed to get an A-, even factoring in the fainting. Not bad!) Kihyun gets scolded by most of his professors for skipping prep week. He apologises by turning in his tests moderately early, with neat, confident marks. He’s still considering dropping out but he’s dropping out with straight As, dammit.

Minhyuk starts catching the bug once the adrenaline from finishing his final projects dies down. He swears he caught it from Hyunwoo, and turns down Kihyun’s offer to party in lieu of taking care of his ailing boyfriend.  _ (He’s so big, _ Minhyuk is saying.  _ It takes the antibodies a while to travel through his body. And he never wears his coat.) _ Kihyun meets Dayoung at the train station in his best, gold and brown checkered button-down. Not that anyone can see it underneath his winter coat. It's unusually warm for a December afternoon, but snow season is on the horizon and the wind has a bite to it. All he can see on her are her black tights and a cozy pair of fur-lined boots. He can also see her coat is a pretty unflattering shade of olive. He makes sure to tell her so, and her friend joins in on picking fun at her. Tonight will be fun.

As it turns out, Kihyun isn't the only grad student on the trip. A friend from another university has come to wind down after his own finals. Kihyun quickly gets comfortable with him, and they talk about his psychology and communication studies double major. Kihyun restrains himself and only talks about math a little bit. Dayoung sees right through him and laughs her ass off.

The first club they hit is modestly full, but it’s early enough that they don't need to wait in the biting cold longer than a few minutes before they're in and tastefully boozed up. They play a drinking game and when one of the girls has to take a penalty swig, Kihyun enacts his childhood fantasy of being the suave hero and knocks back her shot for her. She kisses him on the cheek and the group hoots. It’s kind of a pride thing.

By the time they bounce and hit the second joint, a smaller building nestled between an old record store and a decal shop in the south end of town, the lines for bigger, more exclusive clubs have stretched around corners. The lot of them stumble in to the new place (Dayoung swears this is her favourite spot) and the music is  _ weird, _ kind of loopy and mixed oddly in a way that makes Kihyun wish he was drunker. So he keeps going.

The grad student puts his hand on Kihyun’s knee under the table and bets he can outdrink him. Dayoung proves how good she is at trivia by kicking everyone’s ass and staying mostly sober. A neighbouring group of students joins the fun and convinces everyone to try a drink with egg whites in it. One of the underclassmen refuses to try it and Kihyun takes hers, powers through his sudden urge to throw it back up, and gets another kiss. His ego is, honestly, through the roof, and he can barely remember what’s had him on edge the past few days. Weeks? He doesn't care, not really. He's just thinking about dropping out, being with Hyungwon and Jooheon, and maybe getting his tongue pierced, because an undergraduate girl said he'd look good if he had a little more metal in his head. She's got two… three? Three nose piercings, so he trusts her judgement. He wonders, for a moment, if Jooheon would approve of this piercing, then forces himself to stop thinking about him immediately. He’s got a stranger with curious hands and a sweet smile to appease.

“If you could get a tattoo,” someone is saying, and another person cuts them off.

“I  _ wouldn't, _ I just  _ wouldn't _ get one!”

“But if you  _ had _ to,” they continue.

“Oh,” Dayoung pipes up. She's linked her arm with the girl sitting next to her, someone from the other group. Kihyun thinks they look cute together. “I know, I’d get a bull!”

“A bull!” the girl with the nose rings cries. “On cute little Dayeobbie!”

“A big scary bull!” someone else yells.

“Noooo,” she laughs, waving away the shock. “Like the Taurus constellation, you know?”

“Are you a Taurus?” Kihyun asks. Grad boy hasn't taken his hand off his knee yet, and Kihyun pretends he hasn’t noticed.

“Yep! So like, a cool silhouette of a bull, or maybe just the horns.”

“Oh, that sounds cool,” someone remarks, and the group hums in agreement.

“What about you, Kihyun-ssi?” Grad boy asks sweetly.

“Mm? A tattoo?”

“Yeah,” the nose ring girl answers for him. “You’d look really good with, like, a sleeve.”

“Nooooo, no no,” Kihyun laughs, waving the thought—and the attention—away.

“I’d get a monkey,” another person says.

“That's because you look like one!”

The rest explode in laughter, even though it's not that funny. The alcohol always makes things easier.

They all lapse into chatter, a few people splitting off to go absolutely wild on the quickly-filling dancefloor, and Kihyun kind of wants to stand up and grind up against Handsy Grad Boy With the Psychology and Communication Studies Double Major to whichever throwback LMFAO/PSY mashup song this is, but he feels a buzz in his back pocket that's different from the buzz of intoxication and he checks his phone.

Nine missed calls. Three from Minhyuk, six from an unknown number. The summary screen also shows a pair of texts from Minhyuk.

LMH XPPP \- 47 minutes ago  
_ hey, hyunwoos worried about you, is everything ok? text me _

LMH XPPP \- 12 minutes ago  
_ heeeey this could potentially be really bad!! please text me asap!!! _

He mentally curses, then curses out loud.

“Who’s that?” his new friend asks, resting his chin against Kihyun's shoulder. It would be casual if he wasn't already up against Kihyun’s back, body swaying to the beat, hands finding their way into Kihyun's front pockets. It's pretty forward for someone he met a few hours ago, and Kihyun has half a mind to disregard the calls and embarrass himself in the arms of this practical stranger.

But…

“Sorry,” he’s saying over the music, awkwardly pulling away. He makes sure that cozy embrace didn't leave him without a wallet, and clasps his hands to his chest in apology. He deftly avoids crushing his glasses—which have been hanging from around his neck, stem threaded through his top button hole, for the past hour. “I gotta, um, I should check this out.”

Comm/Psych Major looks disappointed, but covers it up with a smile. “Hurry back, I’ll keep your seat warm.” He raises and lowers an eyebrow and  _ God, _ he’s such a  _ flirt. _ Kihyun reluctantly ducks into the bathroom just as his phone buzzes again with a fresh call. He hits the button just as he gets into the men’s restroom, but there’s a small group of guys arguing.

“Ugh, hello?” he says into his phone. A reply comes but is drowned out by the yelling, so he backs out and onto the main floor. “Hold on!”

Kihyun shimmies his way toward a far wall, opposite the bathroom door, and spots a side exit. He’s a little too drunk to think ahead, and panics a bit when he leans against the push bar and reads the “EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY” sticker for the first time. But, luckily, no alarm sounds off. He’s hit with a frigid wall of air and trembles a bit as he steps into a side alley between the club and the decal shop. The cold air stings his nostrils and he really wishes he had his jacket, but the silence and the crisp chill push him back into his senses. He’s aware, for the first time that night, how drunk he really is. He needs a mirror. Someone just finished a cigarette out here, the smell sticking in the back of his throat like an old memory. He takes a second to recoup his thoughts.

Kihyun checks to make sure the call hasn't ended before holding his phone up to his ear, the other line eerily silent. “Sorry, uh, hello? Who—”

_ “Where are you?” _

Kihyun blinks a few times, then rubs his eye. “Uhh… Who is this?”

There's a frantic shuffling sound before the next answer.  _ “It’s, it’s Jooheon. Hyung, where are you?” _

Kihyun keeps rubbing his eye until the itch subsides. He’s really drunk. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Who is this?”

_ “Jooheon! It’s Jooheon! Listen, you’re in a dangerous position right now! Where are you?” _

Kihyun summons all of his remaining cognisance to process the words his phone is spitting at him. He’s drunk enough to reach blindly into his pool of emotions and pull out malice. Oh, right. It’s that guy who hasn’t spoken to me in months, suddenly calling my phone in public. After a year of being too afraid to communicate without fifteen precautions set up. Yeah, this makes perfect sense. Kihyun snorts. “Sure…”

The person on the line sounds desperate.  _ “Kihyun, please, I’m being serious. Where are you right now? Are you alone? I know your roommate is out, but I don’t see you anywhere on campus.” _

“Mmkay,” he grumbles. The alcohol in his system prevents any warning flags from initially going off, but he's thankful he remembers what he's supposed to do in this situation. The bitterness at being left hanging for all these months and the subdued panic at suddenly being contacted by a strange number for an emergency situation mingle together. “I don't, uh, I don't know who this is. You have the wrong number.”

_ “No, no no no no, Kihyun-hyung, please, I don't, you’re— It really  _ is _ me, this isn't a, a, a— Please just tell me you’re with someone. Anyone? Please, you’re in a lot of danger.” _

Kihyun frowns. If this really is some unsolicited third party trying to get information, they're not doing a very good job. “How… did you get this number?”

He hears the sound of the door opening behind him, and turns to check it out. A new group of guys all casually file out, and a few head in the direction opposite of Kihyun to exit the alley. He turns away and cups his phone closer.

_ “Okay, okay, you know what? Fuck it, just, leave whatever place you're at, go somewhere else, th—” _

“Hey, hey, hey, whoa,” he speaks over the frazzled stranger. His chest races at the guy’s words, but they're not enough to make him break his façade. “Listen, I’ll give you the uhhh… the benefit of the doubt for a second, but I, I’m, I’m not gonna listen to—”

_ “Oh! Celery and plain rice!” _

Kihyun blinks. “What?”

_ “When you were a little kid you refused to eat anything but celery and plain rice, you told me that. You said you had never told someone that before, right? It can only be one person, right?” _

Kihyun kind of feels like he's wading through ice water. He frowns, pulls his face away from his phone to look back at the strange number. He puts it back to his ear. Jooheon’s name lingers on his lips. “Who…”

Instead of the person on the phone answering, Kihyun hears a gentle sound behind him, as though someone’s shoe had crunched over the gravel. He turns toward the source of the noise to realise that the group of guys hadn't actually left the alley. They all stood hauntingly between him and the exit, and Kihyun wonders how he didn't notice their attire, entirely too formal for any club like this, shiny black loafers and perfectly cut suits, tinted shades hiding their expressions and making them even more unreadable in the dark of the night.

The one closest to him, separated from the group in a way that very much suggests him as the leader of the pack, holds up a hand. “Good evening, sir.”

_ “Who is that? You need to get out of—” _

“Sorry,” Kihyun says, though he isn't sure to who. “I’m busy right now.”

“No worries,” the man says. His face maintains a cool neutral. “We only need a moment of your time.”

“I don't have any time,” Kihyun says, then stuffs his phone deep in his pocket without ending the call.

The man’s mouth tightens. “Listen,” he starts. “This is a very dire situation. A lot of people are at risk, and we only need—”

“Don't care,” Kihyun answers. “I need to go back inside, now.”

He and the stranger stare each other down for a few moments. Kihyun tries to look a lot less hammered than he actually is. Finally, the man adjusts his posture and stands to the side, motioning for Kihyun to pass him. He doesn't buy it.

“It’s kinda… difficult for me to get through the door with all your, uhhhhh, cronies standing around it.” The man stares silently at Kihyun from behind his frames.

“You heard him, move away,” he commands, and the pair of men flanking the door move aside, leaving ample room to pass.

Kihyun is still suspicious, but it's freezing outside and he's on edge. At this point, he just wants to go inside, so he slips quickly between the group and the door, pushes down the handle and pulls it open. He experiences the warmth and the thrum of music for about a single second before one of the men puts a hand on his shoulder and yanks him back.

“Hey, fuck off,” he snarls, and turns toward one of them, but doesn't actually lay eyes on anyone. Instead, something like a blast of hot air hits his face, and he’s blinded.

Later, when he recalls it, he doesn't actually remember his initial reaction. He thinks he might have realised he was being attacked and tried to hit the person closest to him. Or defaulted to trying to rub his eyes. Maybe he tried to run back inside regardless. He doesn't actually remember, but he  _ does _ remember the immediately excruciating sensation of searing pain.

He screams, and suddenly feels hands all over him, pulling him from the club entrance. He thinks he hears the door slam behind him but it’s drowned out by his throat cracking as he shrieks and his hands finally find his face.

_ Everything _ hurts. Everything is burning,  _ blistering _ pain, and he can't rub his eyes hard enough to stave it off. That's all he can think as he tries to curl into a ball and push his knuckles into his eye sockets, but he’s fallen over, he’s being half-dragged half-carried through the alley, against the freezing concrete and grime, and he can't even kick his feet out because his body is being wracked by waves of god damn flesh melting pain. Someone’s hand lands on his face and he forces his mouth open, gets a few fingers between his teeth and bites down, too drunk and panicked and shocked to feel any guilt about breaking someone’s fingers. His hands alternate between trying to claw the arms of the people grabbing onto him and trying to wipe away the sting in his eyes.

Someone hits him,  _ hard, _ against the side of the head, and his jaw loosens enough for the unseen somebody to yank their hand away. A hand fists in his hair and his body slams down against the ground, clattering noisily against some abandoned garbage. He yells out and tries to get to his knees, but someone kicks him in the side and all the wind is knocked out of him. Kihyun wheezes, unable to draw his breath back in, tasting dirt and blood on his tongue and feeling nothing but burning pain in his eyes. Like someone’s hidden onions under his eyelids. Like his whole skull’s been set on fire. He shakily tries to scrub his eyes some relief but it only makes it worse, spreading and intensifying the pain until unseen hands grab him by the crook of the arms, the shirt collar, the roots of his hair, and start pulling him further down the alley. His lungs remember how to fill and he chokes, shaking but breathing again as he’s dragged.

_ “What a pain in the ass,” _ someone remarks, and Kihyun would lash out at them if he could just get his footing and remember how to inhale easily. He feels liquid trail down his forehead; can't quite tell if he's right side up or down; is openly wailing in response to his burning face; but still manages to make out the distinct sound of a car door being popped open and screams, hard.

_ “Throw him in!” _ someone else yells. They're trying to take him somewhere. His fight or flight response properly kicks in and he loses control of his body, a flailing, desperate mess as he tries to jerk himself out of their grasps, but then he's against the edge of a car door, ribs shoved unceremoniously against the locking mechanism, and the futility of his panicked writhing sets in. There's a sound a bit like something striking metal, and then another, and a pair of hands leaves Kihyun’s shirt.

Someone screams, curses, and he feels the other people holding him down freeze. He uses the new opening to kick blindly, releasing his burning face to try and grab at his assailants, manages to snag someone by the collar and yanks them into the wall of the car.

“Lemme  _ go!”  _ he yells. He hears and  _ feels _ the impact, honestly hopes the guy’s nose is broken, and manages to slam his head into the metal one more time before his arm is ripped away and pinned down. One of his legs is freed and he tries to right himself, tries to stand and regain his position, but his knee buckles under him and he hits the ground. The hand pinning his wrist is wrenched away from his fall. There’s a single moment where no one is touching him, and he tries to shakily pull himself up, but then someone from within the vehicle grabs him, hands fisted in the fabric in his shirt, and practically drags him back towards the car door.

“No!” He yells, his voice cracking from the pain and the stress. He kicks out, foot connecting with someone’s side, but loses his balance. His head clips the edge of the door and he lands awkwardly inside, against what feels like leather. His legs are still outside the car, and the unseen person tries to drag him further in. It turns into a tug of war, with Kihyun using one hand to press against his eyes and the other to push against the person trying to drag him in. His shirt gets pulled up, bunching around his neck and shoving the edge of his glasses into the underside of his chin. He’d slip out of it if he could only get the buttons to pop.

He yells in frustration and manages to wrench his arm back, grab the frame of the door and pull harder. The sound of another door opening alerts him, and he gives one final tug as the grip on his shirt is suddenly gone and the momentum shoots him backwards, against the ajar door and back down onto the gravel. Pained moaning, oddly wet, sounds out from behind him.

He is  _ not _ getting kidnapped on the last day of the semester, absolutely  _ fucking _ not.

He can still hear some type of commotion coming from the direction of the car, so rolls onto his hands and knees as quick as physically possible, yelling in aimless pain as his eyes and nose and face sting painfully. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it, though, and forces himself up onto wobbling legs before nearby scuffling alerts him and he hurries in some direction as fast as he can, hip checking the car’s taillight.

_ “Hey!” _ a voice yells. He spits and tries to open his eyes, only barely making out his location in the two seconds of vision he has before the cold wind forces them closed. He's at the opposite end of the alley, in an empty lot between buildings, and it looks like they drove the car in through another street entrance. He catches the sight of a man in a suit on the ground, face in the dirt, before the open air on his stinging eyes burns too much and he has to blindly trudge in the direction of the street.

Crunching gravel follows him and he picks up the pace, fruitlessly yelling for help and trying to rub the pain away the whole time, but the person catches up and grabs him by the arm. Kihyun whirls around and swings his unbound arm out, blindly aiming a fist for where he expects that person’s head to be.

_ “Whoa!” _ the guy yelps, barely dodging the hit. Kihyun yanks and his arm is freed, and he tries to run away but trips over some debris and falls, hitting the ground on his side. He skids a bit, managing to thunk the side of his head against the dirt, and tries to stand through the dizziness.

The stranger approaches again, footsteps crunching through gravel, grabbing Kihyun from behind by the bicep and pulling him to his feet, then grabbing his other arm in an attempt to restrain him. Kihyun snarls and tries to elbow the man behind him.

“Let go!” he hisses, then kicks blindly backwards, definitely lands one on the guy’s knee, but he just turns Khyun to his side and restrains both his wrists in one of his giant hands. Kihyun tries again, kicks high and knees him in the stomach. The guy powers through and manhandles him, yanks him by one of his belt loops until Kihyun is awkwardly held away by the wrists and the waist. Kihyun screams out again, his voice hoarse and desperate and afraid.  _ “Fuck _ you! Let me go!”

“Will you,  _ stop _ making a fuss?” the guy says, and Kihyun’s gut drops when he hears his voice clearly. “Shit, I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m on  _ your _ side!”

_ “S-sunbae?” _ he squawks, attempting and failing to open his burning, rapidly swelling eyes. “What the,” he tries to talk, but the pain on the surface of his face is in his mouth and throat, too, and he pauses to swallow it away, which just makes it worse. “L, let go of me, you fucking freak!”

“No,” Hoseok’s voice says. “I’m—”

“Help!” Kihyun yells. He puts all of his energy into yelling for help, praying the adrenaline will keep his throat from giving out on him. “Someone  _ help _ me, this guy is—” and the rest is cut off when Hoseok’s hand clamps down over his mouth. Kihyun snarls and manages to chomp on a finger, biting as hard as he can before Hoseok yanks his hand away.

“Ow, fuck,  _ stop!” _ he yells, but Kihyun uses the free moment to break away, run forward, stumble, and find himself held up by Hoseok’s strong grip again.

“Stop!” he yells. Hoseok has a bicep in each hand, restraining Kihyun while he stands firm behind him. It's horrifying, how weak he feels in this strange man’s grip. He wants to cry, but the adrenaline only makes him angrier.

“Stop fighting, we’re going,” Hoseok replies, stern, and Kihyun instinctively tries to kick him again.

“No,” he starts, then swallows again. He feels like it's getting harder to breathe with each passing second, and the pain is radiating outwards more and more. His heart is pounding in his ears, his entire body screaming at him to run. He drops his head and squeezes his eyes, but it just makes the pain flare up worse. His knees tremble, and he slowly begins to realise that one of his ankles might be hurt. “Don't take me,” he rasps, shaking his head for emphasis. He’s relieved to hear someone he knows, but that doesn't really mean he  _ trusts _ the guy. He fortifies this plea by trying to wriggle out of Hoseok’s grasp. He gets an arm free, but Hoseok grabs it again in a second, clenching tighter. “Someone, please,” he calls out, and his voice echoes back at him.

“I’m sorry, we have to go,” Hoseok says, and his voice shakes as he urges Kihyun to walk forward, hand releasing his arms to grab his shoulder instead. “They're gonna follow us, we need to go.”

“No!” Kihyun barks, pulling away from his unseen saviour. He manages to speak between his pained swallows. “N, no, I’m not going,  _ anywhere _ with you.”

Hoseok lets Kihyun hurry away from him until he collides with some unseen obstacle, a metal trash can from the way it clatters against the ground on impact. The noise surprises him, and he slams into the alley wall, hands shakily braced against cool brick.

“Are you just going to stand there and wait for them to come after you, then?” Hoseok asks. There's an urgency in his voice. Kihyun wonders where his attackers went. They can't be more than a few metres away from the car he was almost thrown into. He thinks about the man he saw, lying face-down in the dirt.

“I don't,” Kihyun starts, but he stops when another wave of pain hits him and he has to push his eyes into his head with the heels of his hands, leaning his shoulder against wall and trying not to weep, desperately trying to try to snuff out the burn. He isn't sure if his lip is bleeding or if the pain is just tricking him.

Hoseok lets out a frustrated yell. “If they get ahold of you, they're just going to wring information out of you and use it to go after him.”

Kihyun startles. “I… I don't know what you're…”

“Don't play stupid,” Hoseok snaps at him. “We  _ both _ know you're not stupid.”

Kihyun does his best to stop himself from shaking. He begs the denial to stay in his head, to keep him away from any sort of acknowledgement of this awful man as an integral part of his mission. He shakes his head, though he's not sure at what.

Hoseok’s hands find Kihyun’s shoulders again, pulling him closer and turning him toward what he thinks is the street. “I’m not going to hurt you, I’m  _ just _ taking you to safety,” Hoseok says. “I swear.”

“Fuck,” Kihyun hisses, nearly losing his balance as Hoseok’s pace increases. “Fuck this.”

Hoseok doesn't answer, just leads Kihyun as quickly as the two can manage blindly forward. It's  _ cold, _ the frigid winter air chilling the places that don’t feel like they’re on fire, and Kihyun realises he left his jacket in the club.

It’s not much fun when you can't see and your face is burning off. Kihyun spends the trip half-jogging with Hoseok’s hands firm on his upper arms as he pushes him towards some unknown destination, turning and jerking him roughly at turns. He occasionally drops his head to spit blood between his shoes, ignoring the frightened sounds of unfortunate passersby, and holds his shirt sleeve up to wipe his face, forcing back the urge to scream out as the pain in his eyes intensifies with each moment. He isn't crying but he sure as hell is coming close. He has no idea how much time has passed, each second bookended by more and more pain.

“Sunbae,” he starts, but his throat hurts too much to speak properly. He lets out a few pained whimpers.

“Just keep moving, they haven't come after us, yet.”

“Where,” he chokes, “are we?”

“Just trust me.”

“Nnnno?”

Insteading of answering to that, Hoseok takes a sharp left turn and they shoulder their way through a crowd of people. Hoseok turns Kihyun toward him, away from the shocked murmurs of the crowd as they notice what appears to be two very battered boys, and Kihyun finds himself tucked under the older man’s arm, partly shielded from the winter wind. The leather on his jacket bites into him almost as bad as the cold does.  _ (Of course he's wearing that _ , Kihyun thinks,  _ Even in this weather.) _ Kihyun makes another noise of discomfort just as they start moving. He stumbles down a curb and figures they must be at a crosswalk. He wonders what the nearby strangers must think of the sight of him for about three seconds before another wave of pain spreads across his body.

“Shit,” Hoseok curses, and Kihyun tenses up. “We’re going down into the subway. Now.”

Kihyun stops, rooting himself to his spot. He's not going into the metro with this guy. Especially while he's effectively blinded.

Hoseok pushes him forward by the centre of his back. “Before they see us, come on, come on.”

Warning flags go off but Kihyun couldn't speak coherently if he tried, so he just keeps his arm at his eyes, suppressing more whimpers, and takes the stairs carefully. Hoseok is standing mostly beside him, with the back of Kihyun’s shirt bunched up in one fist and his other arm across Kihyun’s chest, hand held tight onto his far shoulder. It kind of makes Kihyun feel emasculated, so he files it away to complain about later.

“Turnstile,” Hoseok says, and Kihyun doesn't understand what he means until they separate. He hesitates, wobbles in his spot, then quickly uses a hand to open one of his eyes manually. It's blurry from the pain, the force, and the fact that his glasses are off, but he catches Hoseok hopping over the turnstile instead of paying the fee before the pain forces his eye shut again.

He should run. But he wasn't smart enough to turn towards the exit first. And what if those men are still following them? He's shaking like a little dog in the rain and the wind only bites harder up at the street level. He stands there, waiting to see if someone is nearby, scandalised by Hoseok’s disregard for the law, but it's eerily quiet down here. No souls besides theirs, and maybe the rats.

He wanders forward tentatively, hands outstretched, before reaching his obstacle. Surprisingly, Hoseok’s hands grab onto his, and he hoists him forward, helps him onto the metal divider, and leads him down to the other side. Kihyun lands and is 100% sure his ankle is at least sprained, nearly falls onto his ass, and can definitely  _ hear _ his stomach churning, but doesn't really get the chance to say so before they move forward. He’s expecting to keep walking, regardless of his obvious limp, but instead Hoseok walks him forward only a few feet.

“Going down,” he says, and leads Kihyun to what he assumes is the edge of the platform. Kihyun backpedals.

“No,” he refuses.

“Trust me, please.”

_ “No,” _ Kihyun tries to wriggle away, so Hoseok emasculates him more by scooping him up and tossing him over his shoulder. “Don't!” Kihyun manages to yell out before the strain causes the muscles in his throat to tighten. Hoseok hops down onto the tracks, and Kihyun bounces on the descent. His stomach slams into Hoseok’s shoulder upon landing, sending a severe shock through his system that turns off his lungs, so when Hoseok sets him back on his feet, Kihyun wobbles, braces one hand against the wall beneath the platform overhang, begs his body to remember how to inhale, and then vomits.

“Oh, jeeze,” Hoseok says, stepping away from the mess.

Kihyun wants to curse him out, but instead decides to focus on emptying his stomach. He’s mostly full of junk food and alcohol so it burns coming back up, and the pain in his throat just makes him feel more and more like he's suffocating. At some point between heaves, his lungs fill and he gets a second of air before he throws up again and chokes. By the time he's sure nothing will come out, he's leaking from every part of his face and coughing and gasping too much to even breathe properly, feeling like a complete mess where he’s leant against the wall. Hoseok started rubbing his back sympathetically at some point, but all that does is piss Kihyun off.

“If you're,” he chokes out, spitting the foul taste from his mouth and gasping for air, “gonna kill me… do it, now.”

“I’m not gonna kill you,” Hoseok assures him. “But we need to move a little further.”

Kihyun spits again. “I wanna die.”

“No, you don't,” Hoseok says.

When Kihyun thinks he’s done, Hoseok leads him down the tracks, keeping their distance from the actual rails. Kihyun stops caring; he favours his good leg and leans more and more into Hoseok as they follow the path down, duck into hidden maintenance shafts and tiptoe carefully over the rails and onto the other side. Hoseok hoists Kihyun up, just not satisfied until he can make the younger man feel more and more like a damsel, and the two of them make it back up onto a different platform. Kihyun, on his knees, crawls away from the edge of the platform. The air is stale down here, sealed off from the cold in some way. But that doesn't stop Kihyun from trembling. It may as well have been a year since he left the club, and he thinks the pain in his eyes has plateaued, but the cold air, the throbbing ache in his head, the travelling on a damaged ankle, the hollowness in his stomach, and the scrapes and bruises littering his body have all made him very,  _ very _ tired. He stays on his hands and knees, head dipping periodically, as if he was dozing off, senses swimming through the never ending fog of intoxication. Hoseok rests a hand on his back.

“Come on,” he urges, but Kihyun disregards him. He folds himself up smaller and flops over, lying on his side, his back to Hoseok. The cold concrete sends chills through his chest, but he doesn't care. Hoseok sighs. “Kihyun, come on.”

Kihyun mumbles and stays still, shivering slightly. It occurs to him that he must look awful, tears and snot and saliva and blood smeared all across his face, inflamed and red and he definitely smells like vomit. He throws an arm over his face in a half-assed attempt to shield it, and hears Hoseok sigh again, deeper.

“There's a vending machine nearby,” Hoseok says. “Do you want some water?”

Kihyun wants a lake, but he doesn't say as much. He clears his throat; it hurts. “Please.”

Hoseok stays there for a few moments before his footsteps head in some arbitrary direction. Kihyun wishes he could see. He wishes he had stayed inside and flirted with Comm/Psych Major. He realises no one has any idea where he is, wonders if those guys who attacked him knew who he was there with. He has to text Dayoung, make sure she's okay, and apologise for leaving. He has to…

Suddenly, Kihyun remembers his phone; he never turned the call off. He shifts his position to one side, reaching into his back pocket for his phone, thankful to find it’s still there. He pulls it close to his face and forces an eye open. He still needs to use his hand to combat the swelling, but he manages it.

He can't look for long, but the mysterious call obviously ended some time ago. He has a few more texts and missed calls waiting for him, but his phone battery is in the red, so he sets it face down and sighs.

Fuck this.

He wonders why those guys came after him. Jooheon had always warned him that dangerous people were after Hyungwon and, by extension, the rest of them. He wasn't expecting cartoonishly villainous gangsters in neat suits to ambush him on his night out and shoot him in the eyes with pepper spray. He also wasn't expecting his least-favourite person to show up out of nowhere and allegedly save his ass. He thinks again, about the man lying on the ground, and how they were able to escape at a leisurely pace, considering how many guys were there.

_ How did Hoseok know what was going on? _ he asks himself. The obvious answer is that Hoseok has been a creepy stalker for about as long as they've interacted with each other. The more worrying answer is that he’s a part of the kidnapping plan.

Kihyun groans at the latter thought. He should try to leave while Hoseok is gone, but he has no idea where he is or where he’ll go. He starts to shiver harder, both from fear and from nerves. He feels truly, completely, absolutely helpless, and he starts wondering if it would be a better idea to roll off the platform and try to figure out which rail is the third one before he gets dragged off to whatever malevolent kidnapping dungeon Hoseok is going to bring him to. He even starts to get back onto his hands and knees before realising his head is starting to hurt, a headache forming from the various pains in his body and the dehydration from throwing his guts up. He cradles his head in his arms and lies in the silence for a bit longer before the distant sound of a train rouses him from his lethargy. Worried, Kihyun shuffles further away from the track, not wanting to get too close. The idea of dying right now appeals a lot less to him when he thinks about it longer than five seconds.

He’s weighing the merits of hiding besides the tracks underneath the platform before a pang of nausea overtakes him. He thinks he's going to throw up again, so he rolls onto his stomach, propping his upper body up on his elbows, but the dry heave never comes. The train rumbles past him, but it's distant, as if it was actually on a track on the level above or below him. He isn't sure where exactly it's coming from. The nausea hits again, harder this time, but it's different. It's sharp, it's deep in the core of his chest and makes a sweat break out on the back of his neck, and it's  _ familiar… _

Kihyun lifts his head, and with the distant rumble of the train comes the gentle sound of footsteps. The sound of brown oxford shoes against concrete, making their way smoothly in his direction. He’s  _ here, _ he’s going to yank him out of the situation before anyone can put them in any more jeopardy, and Kihyun finds himself turning towards the direction of the footsteps, sniffing as they approach.

He reaches out into nothing. “Is that you?” he asks, voice tentative from pain and laced with hope.

The footsteps slow to just in front of his hand and Kihyun tilts his head up to face him. His eyes open slightly and his hyung is there, blurry and shadowed in the dull subway lighting but looking the same way he always had. He reaches out further and Hyungwon squats down to give Kihyun a better look, mouth wide in a grin as he laces their fingers together. His hair has gotten longer, shaggier, but it suits him.

“Hey,” he greets, and Kihyun wants to cry. His chest tightens but he holds it back.

“Where have you been?” he asks, throat still tight.

Hyungwon rests his other hand on the side of Kihyun’s face, cupping his jaw gently. His hands are still so big, and Kihyun realises he's never going to catch up to him in height. He leans into his hyung’s touch, wondering idly if he’s finally older than him. Hyungwon brushes his thumb against the side of his mouth, presses the pad against the center of Kihyun’s bottom lip and teases it a bit.

“I’ve been right here,” he says, looking back and forth between Kihyun’s eyes with a mix of gentle fondness and stern seriousness. Kihyun sighs, a deep, clear exhale that pushes all the pain elsewhere, and he realises, with sudden clarity, that he is  _ definitely _ old enough. He shuffles forward and Hyungwon smiles wider, pulling Kihyun closer. His eyes shut and he falls into his hyung, the man he’s waited such a long time to see again, but the cold must be getting to him because it feels less like a kiss and more like the bubbles in a bottle of soda, a tickling sensation that travels around his whole body and disorients him until he realises he's fallen back down to the cold platform concrete.

There's a hand gently shaking his shoulder and he wonders how he missed and landed on the floor. It's highly embarrassing, so he turns onto his back to face Hyungwon, but his face feels stiff and stings and he can't quite open his eyes. He sniffs and his sinuses are totally blocked.

“Hyungwon?” he calls out. The hand retreats from his shoulder. There's a pronounced silence and Kihyun almost suffocates on it.

“Sorry,” Hoseok says. “It’s just me.”

It takes a few seconds. The memory of Hyungwon’s sudden visit fades at the edges, and Kihyun just can't hold onto it. It muddies itself, until the phantom feeling of a hand on his cheek is totally gone, and he’s left wondering when he fell asleep, praying that some small part of it were real.

“Here,” Hoseok rests his hand on Kihyun’s shoulder again. “You're dehydrated, have some water.”

Kihyun doesn't move. He stays flat on his back, feeling the cold concrete seep through the thin fabric of his shirt. Hoseok gives him a moment before resigning to helping his charge up, scooping a hand under his upper back and lifting him like one might a snoozing toddler. He rights Kihyun into a sit and goes to put the water bottle in his hands, but Kihyun surprises him by choking out a sob and turning away.

The sudden noise is startling, and Hoseok wonders if he imagined it, but then it’s joined by a second, a third, a fourth, until Kihyun is trembling and weeping openly, his head turned away from Hoseok in some last-ditch display of pride. He tries not the choke as his battered throat fights him to breathe and the sobs keep coming, his arms going up to wipe his face and hide from Hoseok. By now, his sleeves have become crusty and firm, already soaked through with slime and blood, but that doesn't stop him from trying to wipe his shame away.

Hoseok puts a hand on Kihyun’s back again, massaging him gently and coaxing him through his cries. He isn't sure what to say, so he has the decency to stay quiet, listening to this stranger’s tears and the distant rumble of a retreating train.

  
  


#  **XV.**

> oh shit wassup_  
> eyyyy lmfao._

Kihyun was lying on his bed, head dangling off while he stared at his room upside down. When he saw his laptop wake up without him, he managed to flip over and approach it. Now, he’s crouched in his desk chair in his PJs, typing quickly to Jooheon. Minhyuk glances over at him from his own bed.

“Talking to your internet boyfriend?” he asks, peering around the screen of his laptop.

“Yep,” Kihyun says.

“Gross,” Minhyuk jeers.

“Jealous?” Kihyun wriggles his eyebrows, and Minhyuk sticks his tongue out. “Don’t worry, I’m sure Hyunwoo will take the hint one day.”

“Oh my God,” Minhyuk snorts. “Shut the fuck up. Hyunwoo’s  _ cute, _ but we’re just friends.”

“You  _ like _ him.”

Minhyuk sends him an obscene hand gesture and Kihyun laughs, turning back to his laptop. Jooheon already has a question typed out and waiting for him.

> how was your trip?_  
> terrible! but i’m glad we escaped the winter cold for a bit.  
> not crazy about the mosquitoes though.  
> the real ones not my family members._  
> lol well that's what tropical places are like_  
> did you do anything special for new years?_  
> not really. just spent some time with my relatives  
> i got pinched a lot_  
> ooooh.  
> are you pinchable?_  
> what an embarrassing question lol  
> but yes. i am of the opinion that i can be very, very cute  
> when i wanna be  
> i’ve got the kind of face most grandmothers can’t resist_  
> so when we inevitably meet up one day am i allowed to pinch you?_

The questions hangs in the command prompt for a few moments. Kihyun looks back at Minhyuk while he waits.

“Are you two doing anything for Valentine’s Day?” he asks.

Minhyuk doesn't even look up from his screen. “No, because we’re not a couple.”

“You don't have to be a couple to go on dates,” Kihyun pokes fun, but there's a bit of sincerity in his words. “We went out last year, didn't we?”

Minhyuk grins. “Are you asking me out?”

“Me? Never again.”

The two share a chuckle at the horrible circumstances of their last Valentine’s Day rendezvous, a day they swore to never describe in detail again. It's a little bittersweet, considering it would be a good memory if all the property damage costs didn't factor in.

Jooheon’s answer finally types itself into the prompt.

> of course  
> you can get all the pinches you want  
> as long as i can get a few on you too_  
> wow you're so forward lol.  
> idk you'll have to convince me.  
> have you earned the honour of pinching me?  
> how do i know you're any good?_  
> don't worry about that  
> i’ve heard i’m pretty good with my hands_

Kihyun turns away from his monitor to hide his blush, even though his laptop camera isn't on. He isn't sure if there's a subtext in Jooheon’s words, but it sure as hell  _ seems _ like it. He takes a moment to regain his composure before responding.

> are you trying to fluster me?_  
> maybe  
> is it working?_  
> you wish! :P  
> i’m unshakeable. 100% immune to flirting._  
> hyung no offense but you're so easy to flirt with_  
> what? no._  
> it’s true  
> i can see your ego from my house  
> i can't even butter you up because you're already so well greased_  
> that's not true at all!  
> you just have hours of creepy surveillance footage of me to analyse and pick out my weaknesses.  
> my ego is perfectly average._  
> suuuure it is lolol_  
> you don't know me._  
> i know a lot about you_  
> but you don't actually know me._  
> oh come on  
> we talk like every day_  
> it's not the same thing.  
> all of our conversations are guarded and have this weird air of being against the rules.  
> and i’m still the one drawing the short end of the stick in terms of when we talk and what we talk about so it’s like  
> this uneven platform isn't really the best way to nurse a growing relationship._  
> you think so?  
> i never really saw it that way_  
> again, that's because you take up the dominant position in all our interactions.  
> from my perspective it's really obvious._  
> ah, so would you say that you’d prefer the dominant role in this relationship?_

Kihyun inhales very gently, staring at the double-entendre Jooheon has just casually sent him, and decides to deal with it later.

> no not necessarily. equal footing is always the best starting point.  
> and like if two people naturally fall into their preferred roles and it works out that way then it's fine.  
> it's just weird that the equal footing stage never really happened for us and  
> i mean, i like talking to you a lot, so don't think i’m complaining or anything.  
> i just don't really like feeling like i’m at the mercy of someone else.  
> not to say you're merciless or anything! like i’m not scared you're gonna sell my social security information on the deep web or blackmail me or something.  
> i mean i did for a while but i don't feel that way anymore._  
> hey_  
> sorry, sorry i’m rambling again.  
> i’ll shut up lol._  
> no you can ramble  
> you just kinda seem like you're working yourself up trying not to upset me  
> you don't have to apologise for being uncomfortable with all of this  
> if anything, i’m the one that's sorry  
> i know i’m really casual about everything and it’s easy for me to forget how scary all the secrecy and puzzle solving can be  
> but i do know  
> and i’m sorry i haven't been putting in much of an effort to make you feel as secure as i do  
> please, i can't give you everything but if there's anything that you don't like about what we’re doing, tell me  
> and i’ll do my best  
> ok?_

Kihyun leans away from his desk.

“Minhyukkie,” he whines, placing both hands on his chest.

Minhyuk glances up. “What did he do?”

“He’s so mature,” Kihyun sighs, letting his head fall to the side and making a pained expression. “He’s so responsible. He’s so considerate.”

“He’s  _ supposed _ to be all those things,” Minhyuk scolds. “Don’t fall for the bare minimum! Raise your standards.”

“Ughh, I love him,” Kihyun ignores his roommate, practically falling out of his chair. “We’re going to get married overseas in a sunflower field and have two kids.”

“Where are you getting kids???” Minhyuk asks, incredulous.

“We’re getting a cat and a ranch in a suburb, and we’re getting a waterbed with a canopy.”

“Oh my  _ God, _ you're nauseating.”

“Will you be our first son’s Godfather?”

“Yes, but first I’m gonna go pee.” Minhyuk shuffles out of bed, partially to use the restroom but mostly to escape Kihyun’s rare moment of infatuation.

Kihyun casts his composure aside and returns to his laptop, the hearts practically visible in his eyes.

> you’re so much._  
> uh?_  
> in a good way.  
> you're a lot and i love all of it._  
> i don't understand but i love you too?_  
> lolol  
> thank you.  
> for listening and being considerate of my feelings.  
> i’m really glad that my mysterious hacker turned out to be you. i don't know if i’d be as trusting if you were someone different._  
> the soulmate thing has its perks!  
> i’m really glad that you've been so  
> open  
> and accepting of all of this  
> i know it's weird and dangerous and if you were more guarded i’d completely understand  
> but i’m thankful i’m allowed to know you to any degree  
> i’m thankful i get to tell you i love you after talking for two weeks and have it not be weird  
> and that i get to talk to you when i’m down and i get to hear about your day  
> and i just  
> i really like you a lot  
> i’m serious when i say i’ll do my best for you  
> so don't hesitate to complain or talk about polynomials for fifty nonstop minutes_  
> you're so much._  
> what does that mean?!?!_  
> it means i’m swooning._  
> god you really need to raise your standards_  
> you know, minhyuk said the exact same thing to me._  
> he's right  
> come on how am i supposed to aspire to be a better boyfriend if you already love everything i do_  
> you're perfect, don't change lol.  
> although i won't lie.  
> your love confession two weeks after we spoke for the first time was pretty weird._  
> yeah it was, wasn't it?  
> sorry about that  
> but you said it back!_  
> i did, but i don't think i meant it back then as much as i do now._  
> yeah  
> me too_

Minhyuk returns, shaking water from his hands, and stops in his tracks. “Are you okay?”

Kihyun looks up at him, startled. “Hm?”

“You look like a tomato.”

Kihyun touches his cheek, as though he could feel the blush. “Ah, uh. That’s…”

“Never mind,” Minhyuk shakes his head. “I get it.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thanks for your patience with this chapter. Looking back, I'm glad I split it in half. Even if the halves aren't really of equal length.
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this. Its kind of a whirlwind and hopefully does well to explain the timeline a bit more. Swapping back and forth between "past events" and "current events" is going to be an ongoing thing in this story, so if there's still confusion about when things are happening, please say so. Im doing my best to make things understandable, but the accessibility to the audience is always important! I chose to write this story like this so that you could directly see how Kihyun's past experiences influence his current actions. It may not be evident in this exact chapter, but as things move forward it will be easier to see. (This is all technically still the prologue. Details about that will go on my twitter though!)
> 
> The illustration took a lot out of me, but I was really proud of it as i worked on it. Now, I think I've just looked at it too long XD. Some of the background characters are only here for one scene. Some of them will appear later. Several of them are cameos from other Korean artists. See if you can figure out who is who!
> 
> Thanks again for reading. I doubled up on my editing, so next week's update will go up as planned. I'm not yet sure if it will have an illustration, though. See you next time. :)


	5. 1 - 5

  


#  **XVI.**

> whatre you thinking about_  
> hyungwon._

Kihyun lies on his side, his laptop propped up awkwardly against his legs. He types out his answers slowly, with one hand. He’s alone in his room tonight, and the only thing to light up the dark is the glow from his monitor.

> you think about him a lot, huh_  
> not so much lately.  
> but it happens from time to time._  
> were you two close_

Kihyun stares at the command prompt, his thumb idly tracing over the edge of the space bar.

> he was someone important to me.  
> i don’t think he really knew or felt the same way.  
> probably because of the ten year age difference._  
> that won’t be an issue anymore though  
> you should tell him_  
> maybe.  
> i don’t know.  
> things are different. i’m not sure of how i feel anymore._  
> ah  
> what’s changed?_  
> well, for one thing, you showed up._  
> oh lol_  
> yeah.  
> being with you has been nice and has  
> also kind of  
> made me think more about him._  
> is that a good thing or a bad thing_  
> it’s  
> weird.  
> it’s all really weird.  
> i  
> don’t know what i’ll say to him when i see him.  
> i don’t know if, like,  
> okay  
> okay okay  
> if you asked me a few years ago, i’d probably tell you that hyungwon was the first man i ever loved.  
> but now

Kihyun frowns, unsure of how to explain himself. He wonders if there will be some consequence to talking about his past relationships (if you can even call it that) with the man he’s currently dating, but thinks he can salvage everything once he gets his thoughts together.

> now, i_  
> you worry that those feelings have faded with time_  
> kind of? but also that i don’t know how sincere those feelings were to begin with.  
> like ever since we came together it’s really put it in perspective.  
> i like you a lot and i never have to question that and i can think of reasons why.  
> but with hyungwon it’s just  
> nothing._

Kihyun swallows and wrings his hands together. It hurts a lot, admitting it, but this concern has been on his mind for a long time. Long before he and Jooheon worked out the complicated feelings they had for each other. He wonders if he’s spent the last few years chasing after his teenage illusion of someone.

> nothing at all?_  
> well  
> maybe a little bitter at feeling left behind for all these years.  
> a little resentment at the idea that he might have just been using me to fulfil whatever weird agenda he had.  
> disappointed that it’s getting harder and harder for me to remember why i looked up to him in the first place, outside of the fact that he was just an older man who was nice to me.  
> selfish, for having all these negative ideas swimming around my head when he hasn’t actually done anything to hurt me besides leave suddenly after hopping off the pedestal i put him on.  
> grateful, yet terrified, because i know it’s thanks to him that i am where i am now.  
> but honestly  
> mostly nothing._  
> that didn’t sound at all like “nothing” ki  
> that sounded like you’ve been sitting on this a long time  
> or, knowing you, repressing it_  
> listen i know i can talk a lot and it’s hard to believe there’s a single topic i couldn’t rant about for hours  
> but i don’t actually like thinking about him that much.  
> it hurts. i spent years justifying every single thing i did with eventually being reunited with hyungwon.  
> i gave up a lot of things that i thought would get in the way of me seeing him again.  
> if he didn’t just. poof out of nowhere and give me specific instructions on how to spend the next few years of my life i don’t know what i would be doing.  
> i don’t know what i would have done.  
> i don’t like feeling like a sucker but it’s getting more and more obvious that i tricked myself into thinking i mattered to this man i barely know._  
> hey come on  
> don’t think like that  
> even if you’re starting to have doubts about the nature of your relationship with hyungwon, that doesn’t undo the fact that we’re all linked  
> don’t worry about the catalyst of your actions. just worry about the results_  
> what do you mean?_  
> like, who cares if your feelings have changed over the years  
> it’s only natural  
> and even with time travel shenanigans and power far beyond our comprehension, we can’t change the past  
> but we’re all working toward a common goal, and we can only get there if we focus on it  
> am i making sense?_  
> sort of._  
> i’m just saying there no use in pining over what you may or may not have lost  
> it won’t help, especially not when any closure you want is in your future  
> i don’t think you need to work out your feelings about hyungwon just yet_

Kihyun sighs and shuts his eyes. It’s pretty difficult to cast aside his worries after years of stressing over them. But he supposes Jooheon  _ is _ right; Hyungwon is in his past and (hopefully) his future. There’s not much he can do but focus on going forward.

> i guess.  
> i’m probably still going to be worried, though._  
> well  
> i’m here if ever wanna vent your worries_  
> you’re always here. thanks.  
> but now i feel bad for bringing the mood down, lol._  
> don’t feel bad! you can bring the mood down whenever you want_  
> nooo i don’t want to be a downer._  
> you’re not a downer  
> will it help you feel better if i’m a downer too?_  
> i don’t know if it’ll make me feel better, but if it means i get to talk to you longer i’m all ears.  
> god that was kind of cheesy, sorry._  
> i love your cheese.  
> anyway  
> i know i don’t talk about this a lot but  
> man, my parents have really outdone themselves recently lmfao_  
> oh no.  
> parent drama.  
> what happened?_  
> lol it’s kind of petty_  
> i love pettiness. go nuts._

Kihyun, kind of glad to be free from talking about his ever-inconvenient emotions, rolls onto his stomach and sets his laptop on the pillow in front of him. He doesn’t kick his legs in the air this time, and just focuses on Jooheon’s words.

> yeahhhhhh it’s just kind of weird to talk about cuz i’m not used to it  
> but you know about my kit right?_  
> of course._  
> well, so, our church has a choir with a band  
> mostly the kids of some of the ushers and choir members on a handful of old instruments  
> well last weekend one of them showed up with a broken wrist_  
> oh yikes._  
> she’s fine, but that meant she couldn’t play drums for mass  
> and so i volunteered to take her spot for the next service_  
> that sounds great!_  
> it was! the kids were super cool and they showed me the procession and we got to practise together on saturday evening.  
> even though it was just one morning accompanying the choir a handful of times it felt so great. like i had been waiting for an opportunity to do this and i finally got to really express myself. like  
> like there was a part of me locked away and i could only get it out by playing for a crowd  
> lol i sound like a pretentious art student_  
> i live with an art student and no you don’t. you’re not nearly cynical enough._  
> lmfao  
> the point is i had fun_  
> aw i’m happy for you! you really deserved the opportunity.  
> now get to the part where your mom and dad ruined everything._  
> ugh yeah  
> after mass the pastor thanked me for filling in and thanked my parents too, as if they had anything to do with it, and they just acted like i was some big embarrassment  
> they did nothing but berate me on the car ride home and it was soooo shitty because my great mood was immediately ruined_  
> god that fucking sucks, i’m so sorry._  
> it really did fucking suck  
> and it was kind of hurtful?  
> like i pour my heart out for this thing i love to do and i help put on a show and help a community my family’s been a part of for years  
> and all they can do is cover their eyes and cringe  
> like shit i did my best sorry i wasn’t good enough for you  
> i don’t know what else i expected from them lmfao_

Kihyun, infinitely uncomfortable, rolls into his other side and types with a single hand again. He frowns into his monitor. Jooheon never really talks this much about his problems at home, and he doesn’t want to push too hard  _ or _ too gently.

> that’s really awful. i’m sure you did a great job for everyone in your church. even if your parents don’t recognise that._  
> yeah. it’s not as fulfilling as when strangers are proud of me though lol  
> i just wish they cared about my interests at all  
> like i understand they’re my parents and they want the best for me but being interested in music isn’t going to negatively affect my life in any way. i did what they asked and i got an education in the field they wanted me to and they devote so much of their attention to the part of my life that they sculpted for me but if i ever ask for their support in something i care about they’re just not there. i’m not even asking for much i just want a little recognition of the other things i work hard on_  
> that must be really hard to deal with. i’m sorry._  
> it’s fine  
> i just  
> wish i could stop expecting a change of heart from them  
> you know i wrote them a song  
> last year for my birthday i made a stupid shitty thank you song  
> it was really heartfelt and i put a lot of thought and time into it and i thought that if i was honest with them  
> if i really tried to talk to them about my feelings using the thing i cared about the most  
> i thought they’d see something or react in some way  
> like an episode of a sitcom  
> they looked at me like i brought a wild animal into the house  
> like i got a tattoo and spit in their faces  
> i even tried to play it off like haha if it’s bad you can tell me but they just brushed it aside like it was embarrassing  
> and i was embarrassed! i was humiliated! i felt like a fucking idiot standing in front of them with my heart in my hand and watching them treat my feelings like a major flaw  
> i’ve never done anything to spite them. i’ve never gotten in any serious trouble or rebelled. my grades were good and i always listened and i went out of my way to try and make them proud of me and they  
> they are proud of me. they tell me all the time how proud of me they are but it’s always about something that they pushed me towards. they conditioned me so fucking hard to only do things that they approved of that the second i developed an interest that they hadn’t explicitly cosigned it was a nightmare  
> i don’t get it  
> i’m not hurting anyone by liking music  
> i’m not a bad kid  
> i feel like i can’t be myself and have my parents’ approval at the same time and it sucks because i’ve literally spent my whole life appeasing them. i just want them to recognise the things that i do of my own accord and i want them to be proud of the person i am, not the person they made. and i really, really tried to get that message across to them. i’m grateful for what they’ve done and i’m not asking for a lot more. i just wanted them to see how they make me feel  
> but all they did was make me feel stupid  
> i still feel stupid_  
> jooheon, you’re not stupid.  
> i’m so, so sorry you have to deal with this. you know your worth has nothing to do with your parents’ wishes, right? you matter all on your own and they can’t take that from you._  
> i know that  
> i do  
> but it doesn’t make me feel better

Kihyun’s heart twists, like someone’s wrapped their fist around it. His fingers hesitate while he thinks of a response, but Jooheon’s words start appearing first.

> i feel empty whenever i deal with them  
> like there’s two of me and i have to pick between one where i’m happy doing what i love and one where my parents like me_  
> do you think they don’t like you?_  
> they like me when i’m their perfect son who does everything they ask and doesn’t think for himself  
> they don’t like me when i wear a shirt they don’t like or listen to new songs or when i exhibit a single behaviour outside of desperately trying to please them  
> kihyun i’m a fully grown adult and i feel like a lost little boy  
> i feel like i’m absolutely nothing_  
> baby stop that. you know how important you are.  
> you’re the only one keeping us all together and tackling this entire giant job.  
> plus you’re the love of my life and you’ve improved my entire life without us even having met in person. even if that’s just a little thing it means the world to me and it’s a lot more than nothing.  
> you can’t keep obsessing over your parents’ approval._  
> it’s hard  
> i’ve been doing it my whole life and it’s so hard  
> i’m so tired of having to convince myself that they love me  
> parents shouldn’t do that to a child. they shouldn’t be allowed to  
> i’m their first son  
> doesn’t that mean something?  
> doesn’t that matter? do i even matter?  
> why did they even have me?_  
> stop sto_  
> wh_  
> p st_  
> y was_  
> op i_  
> i _  
> t!_  
> ev_  
>!! j_  
> en born?_  
> ooheon!!! stop it!!!_  
> i’m sorr_  
> s_  
> y_  
> top it!!! stop thinking like this!!! you’re incredible and wonderful and the best thing that’s ever happened to me!!! we’re soulmates we were born to grow up and meet each other and live our lives together and that’s why you were born ok???  
> you do not!!! have to choose between being yourself and being your parents’ son and if you ever feel like you do it’s because they fucked up!!!  
> you weren’t born for them, ok? you were born because of them.  
> you are infinitely more important than the selfish thoughts of people who don’t care would leave you to believe.  
> think about how happy you were this sunday! how good it felt to do what you like!  
> don’t let them take your happiness away from you. your happiness does not belong to them, ok?   
> do you understand me?  
> jooheon?

The marker blinks monotonously at Kihyun, waiting for anyone to say anything. He doesn’t think he’s ever experienced a silence this deafening in his entire life, and he’s never even heard this man’s voice.

> jooheon please?_  
> sorry  
> i’m sorry  
> can we stop  
> i can’t talk about this anymore_  
> it’s ok. we can stop._  
> i’m really sorry_  
> don’t._  
> i don’t know what came over me_  
> it’s fine.  
> you’re fine.  
> you know i love you, right?_  
> i know  
> i love you too_  
> i wish i could be there for you.  
> i swear to god i’m gonna smother you in kisses the second i see you._  
> god  
> the day we meet is gonna be really hectic and stressful_  
> perfect time for kisses._  
> lol  
> you’re right  
> i’m sorry_  
> don’t apologise, you didn’t do anything wrong._  
> this is just so embarrassing for me  
> i know i said i was gonna be a downer but i shouldn’t have dumped all that on your shoulders  
> i’m not asking for a solution or anything so don’t feel obligated to stress over this_  
> i want to hear about your problems. and i don’t want you to feel like you have to suffer alone.  
> i will always, always, always be here for you.  
> in this life and the next._

The ticker blinks for a full two minutes. Kihyun stares at it, intense and worried.

> i’m sorry_  
> you didn’t do anything wrong. don’t worry about it._  
> no i’m just  
> i’m so, so sorry  
> you’re so much_  
> hey, that’s my line._  
> we’re both such a mess huh_  
> thrown through a loop by the actions of people we dote on?  
> yeah, big mess._  
> it really sucks that people just hurt each other like this  
> even when it’s unintentional, it’s just what we all do  
> like it’s an unavoidable consequence to all relationships_  
> it really seems that way, doesn’t it?  
> but it doesn’t have be.  
> if i do or say something that doesn’t sit well with you, promise you’ll tell me?  
> i don’t ever want to be the person you have to vent about._  
> i’ll tell you  
> i promise_  
> and i promise to always make an effort to keep you happy._  
> thank you  
> i really appreciate that_  
> and you’ll do the same for me?_

This time, the ticker blinks a few more times than Kihyun’s stomach would like.

> of course

  
  


#  **XVII.**

_ “Oh my God, oh my God oh my God, are you okay? What happened, what—” _

“I left my, uh, my jacket at the club,” Kihyun slurs. He’s still pretty drunk, but now the adrenaline and the dehydration have combined to put him in a weird state of shock where he isn’t completely aware of what’s going on, but he keeps startling himself awake every time he thinks he’s dozing off.

Hoseok pulls his phone from Kihyun’s hand and replaces it with an uncapped bottle of water. Getting his intoxicated, bleeding companion to drink from it for the past thirty minutes has been a hassle. Getting him off the platform and up the stairs into the concourse was a necessary action. Here, besides the metro entrance, where the sound of distant chatter and winter winds on the street level echoed down to the ticket vending machines, Kihyun felt a little more at ease about essentially being blind and trapped with his least favourite person.

“I’m not thirsty,” he rasps out of what is a very,  _ very _ strained throat. Hoseok gives him an exhausted look that he knows goes unseen.

“Minhyuk-ssi, I’m sorry,” he says into the phone. He’s had the suspicion that Hyunwoo’s partner dislikes him for a while, but honestly isn’t able to tell if it’s because he lives with Kihyun and has heard nothing good or if Hoseok’s just unlikable. If he could audibly frown, he would. “Can you please put Hyunwoo on?”

There’s silence, then a gentle shuffling sound.

“I don’t want this,” Kihyun complains, setting the water bottle down on the bench between them. It topples over immediately and Hoseok scrambles to stop it from pouring all over their seat. “Gimme my phone back.”

“It’s  _ my _ phone,” Hoseok hisses. “Your phone is in your lap.”

Kihyun frowns and cracks his eyes open before they fall shut of their own accord. His whole face is definitely swollen. He can’t touch it without it burning, but it’s at least dropped down to a manageable ache of pain, instead of the throbbing waves that only seemed to intensify each moment. He pats around and, yep, his phone is in his lap. Just like the creep said. He holds it up and squints at it. He’s got a load of missed calls from Dayoung, Minhyuk, and…

Oh. Right.

Fifteen percent battery is enough to make another call, he decides.

_ “Hoseok?” _

“Hyunwoo, how are you feeling?” Hoseok calls to him, trying to put the cap back on the water bottle with one hand. He feels bad, bothering him when he’s been sick lately, so he sweetens up his voice a bit.

_ “I’ll be okay,” _ Hyunwoo replies, and Hoseok can hear the smile in his voice.  _ “You two were in danger. What’s going on?” _

“Kihyun was attacked. I got to him before they co—”

_ “Attacked??” _ Minhyuk’s voice sounds, and Hoseok realises he’s been put on speaker.  _ “Who attacked him?” _

_ “Most likely the people who are,” _ Hyunwoo starts, then coughs in the middle of his sentence. It lasts a few moments.

“People who are after us, and Hyungwon,” Hoseok finishes, then adds the last bit at a quieter volume.

_ “So are they going to be ambushing us in the streets, now?” _ Minhyuk sounds erratic, worrying loudly over the sound of Hyunwoo clearing his throat.

“Daaaayeobbie~,” Kihyun sing-songs into his phone, scaring the crap out of Hoseok.

_ “Where the  _ heck _ are you?!” _ she shouts, loud enough for Hoseok to hear even when it’s not on speaker.  _ “It’s been twenty minutes and we’ve scraped this club clean! We’re all worried  _ sick _ about you!” _

_ “We might,” _ Hyunwoo starts, then coughs again,  _ “We might be in danger, but I think the immediate threat has already passed.” _

“Sunbae ran into trouble,” Kihyun says, leaning onto the railing to hear his own conversation better.

_ “Oh my gosh, are you okay? Where are you?” _ Dayoung asks quickly.

_ “Is someone else there?” _ Minhyuk asks.

“No,” Hoseok sighs. “He’s making a call.”

“Shin Hoseok tried to kidnap me,” he says quickly, under his breath. “I need you to call the cops and—”

“Do!  _ Not! _ Say that!” Hoseok yells, reaching over and snatching the phone from Kihyun. He shoves his phone back into his inebriated menace’s hands before putting Dayoung to his ear. “Dayoung, I’m sorry, I came to the club you like to surprise you but I found Kihyun in an alley outside and now I’m taking him home.”

_ “In the alley? Was he sick?” _

A bead of sweat manifests on Hoseok’s temple. He doesn’t like to lie. “He threw up,” Hoseok decides on a half-truth. “He’s in bad shape so I’m taking him home.”

_ “Kihyun,” _ Hyunwoo’s voice gently sounds from the phone now suddenly in Kihyun’s grasp.  _ “Did they hurt you?” _

“I’m blind.”

_ “Blind???” _ Minhyuk parrots.

“I think they maced me,” Kihyun adds. “Can’t open my eyes.”

_ “Oh my God,” _ Minhyuk says, warbling into the phone.  _ “Where are you? I’ll come pick you up.” _

_ “Sunbae,” _ Dayoung warns.  _ “I don’t like this…” _

“Dayoung, do I seem like the type of person who kidnaps people?” Hoseok’s voice takes on a desperate air. It’s been a long night of people not trusting him, and he’s beginning to worry about his image.

_ “I guess not,” _ Dayoung’s answer comes a bit too tentative for Hoseok’s taste.

“I have my house keys,” Kihyun mulls. “You can stay there.”

_ “Maybe you should go,” _ Hyunwoo says.

“Hey,” Kihyun interrupts. “Hyunwoo-hyung. Do a better job with Minhyuk.”

_ “... What?” _

“You’re doing a bad job,” Kihyun repeats. “Do better.”

“I’ll send you a picture of him tucked into his bed, safe and warm, when we get back,” Hoseok promises.

_ “Jeeze,” _ Dayoung sighs.  _ “You two are so mischievous when you’re apart, it’s even worse when you’re together.” _

“Hey, this is  _ his _ fault!” Hoseok defends. “I just showed up!”

_ “He does this when he’s drunk, ignore him,” _ Minhyuk says. Kihyun wishes he could glare over a phone line.

“Minhyuk, talk to him,” Kihyun snaps.

_ “Do you need me to come get you?” _ Minhyuk asks, and Kihyun realises he’s been taken off speaker.  _ “I think it’ll be better if we’re all together. We shouldn’t be separate if things are this tricky right now.” _

Kihyun inhales as deeply as he can, fighting against the tight burn in his chest and throat. He doesn’t want to be trapped with Shin Hoseok any longer, but he also doesn’t want to drag Minhyuk into danger. He just wants to be home already.

“I’ll be ok,” Kihyun says, voice a bit airy. “But if Creepy Stalker Guy doesn’t get me there in an hour call the  _ ffffucking _ cops cuz he’s gonna harvest my organs.”

Hoseok gives Kihyun a grim look.

_ “Was there anything in his coat pocket? Like, does he have his wallet and stuff?” _

“Did you leave anything in your coat?” Hoseok asks.

Kihyun glances over his shoulder. “Why do  _ you _ wanna know?”

“It’s for Dayoung.”

“Why does  _ she _ wanna know?”

Hoseok pinches the bridge of his nose, then holds Kihyun’s phone back out to him. Kihyun stares, suspicious and delirious, before grabbing onto his phone to talk to Dayoung and allowing Hoseok to nab the other one from his hands.

“Hyunwoo,” Hoseok calls. “I’m taking Kihyun home now. Will you two be alright?”

_ “I think you should bring him to our place and keep the four of us together,”  _ Hyunwoo responds.  _ “Do you have your bag or is it here?” _

“Oh, I left it at your house. Thank you.”

_ “Hoseok-ah,” _ Hyunwoo calls out to him, and Hoseok’s chest tightens.  _ “Are you okay?” _

“We’re fine. I think anyone that was following us lost our trail.”

_ “No, I meant specifically you.” _

“Mm?”

_ “You said he was being attacked when you found him. Did you get hurt?” _

Hoseok runs a hand down his thigh, squeezing his knee carefully. “I’ll be okay. I just got roughed up a little.”

Hyunwoo grumbles, unsatisfied.  _ “I’ll take a look at you when I see you, okay?” _

“Okay. Thanks, again.”

Hyunwoo chuckles.  _ “No problem. Call me back when you’re close.” _

“I will. Love you.”

_ “Love you. Bye.” _

“Bye.”

_ “Nine condoms???” _ Dayoung gasps.

“Yyyyep,” Kihyun mumbles into his phone. “What else’s in my pockets?”

_ “Nothing! Why did you bring  _ nine _ condoms?!” _

“Sunbae needs to be prepared, Dayoung-ah,” Kihyun, resting completely on the bench armrest, answers. “Oh, speaking of that, give my number to that guy.”

_ “Guy?” _

“Communicating Psychology boy. The one who had his hands on my ass all night.”

Dayoung hesitates.  _ “Hey, careful, sunbae. Isn’t Hoseok-oppa still around?” _

“Hmmm?”

_ “Do you really want to ask about another guy while he’s there? He’s not really the casual dating type.” _

Kihyun’s eyes are closed, but he blinks anyway. “Dayeobbie, you’ve got a fundamental misunderstanding about the relationship I have with this man.”

_ “Do I?” _

“Yeah, no offense but your friend is predatory and I hate him.”

_ “Predatory??” _

Hoseok yanks Kihyun’s phone away so quickly it takes Kihyun a few seconds to realise his hand is empty.

“Dayoung I hate to ruin this conversation but I need to get this boy home before he dies in the street and blames it on me.”

Dayoung laughs, and Hoseok hears a concerned voice in the background ask if everything is alright.  _ “Yeah, hold on. Um, okay, oppa, you’ll text me when he’s home, right?” _

“Absolutely.”

“What’re you saying to her?” Kihyun demands, leaning closer to Hoseok. “Gimme back my phone.”

_ “Kihyun-sunbae takes a while to warm up to people,” _ Dayoung continues.  _ “Please don’t take the things he says too hard.” _

“I’ll… try,” Hoseok sighs, leaning away from Kihyun. “See you later, Dayoung.”

_ “Good luck, oppa.” _

Hoseok hangs up and passes Kihyun’s phone back to him. The latter frowns and squints at it. “You hung up.”

“I’m taking you home, now” Hoseok states, getting to his feet. He brushes the dust off his pants and turns back to Kihyun. “I’m parked outside, okay? And then, straight home.”

Kihyun eyes him warily, refusing to move. Hoseok holds a hand out, and Kihyun looks back down to his phone. 2% battery left. He wonders if he should preemptively call the police. God knows where this man will take him.

“Kihyun,” Hoseok sighs.

“Gimme a sec, fuck,” Kihyun spits at him. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to stay. He wants someone to walk down the stairs, see the two of them, and offer to pay their cab fare. He doesn’t want to get into whatever mystery vehicle Hoseok drives. He can imagine it easily, being led to a single car in an empty lot and noticing an odd dent in the side, blood on the backseat, just before some familiar guy in a suit puts a sack over his—

“It’s the middle of the night,” Hoseok snaps. “And I need to get you out of here before you get the police called on me.”

Kihyun snorts, which irritates his throat. He glances back at Hoseok, then at his phone again. One percent. Kihyun sighs and stuffs it deep into his front pocket. He thinks for a moment, then hastily checks his back pocket. Somehow, his wallet is still in there.

Kihyun gives Hoseok the nastiest glare he can muster for someone with his eyes half swollen shut, and slowly pushes himself up into a sit. He tests his hurt ankle and, ignoring Hoseok’s outstretched hand, gets to his feet.

His vision swims and his legs tremble just a bit. It’s so easy to forget how drunk you are when you’re sitting down. The world shifts on an odd arc, afterimages leaving trails in his peripherals, and he catches Hoseok making a leap for him before he realises he’s falling, tries to correct by putting pressure on his bum leg, and ultimately collapses. Hoseok grabs him by the upper arm before he can break his head open on the concrete and helps him rest on his knees. Kihyun, dizzy and confused, gets into a crawl and waits for everything to stop spinning. Hoseok crouches beside him.

“I’m gonna pick you up,” he says, and Kihyun regains his motor skills just enough to lean on one hand, find Hoseok’s chest with the other, and shove him away.

“Nope,” Kihyun declares. He stays down for a few more seconds before he clumsily, sloppily rises to his knees, then braces an arm on the seat of the bench beside him and gets back onto his feet. This time, when he wobbles, he’s prepared, and manages to keep his balance. Kihyun turns to give Hoseok a satisfied smirk, but Hoseok just stares, annoyed. Kihyun’s smile fades and he leans forward to get a better look. “What happened to you?”

Hoseok, now that he’s seeing him, is noticeably roughed up. He’s got blood and bruising on the edge of his mouth and a nasty gash along his hairline. Not to mention the general grime and scuffs on his jacket and undershirt. Hoseok looks irritated.

“I fought off five guys for you, remember?” he asks, voice lined with vitriol.

Kihyun scoffs, “You’re just one guy,” but he looks Hoseok up and down. He is pretty big. Could he have really taken out half a dozen guys by himself? Kihyun, again, remembers the danger he’s in. He’s with a dangerous man, and this dangerous man is going to take him to his home.

“I’ll tell you all the details later,” Hoseok sighs, and reaches for Kihyun’s hand. Kihyun jerks it away. “Kihyun, please,  _ please _ stop wasting time.”

Kihyun watches him carefully, unconsciously thankful that he doesn’t have any adverse reaction to Hoseok’s words. Alcohol really is a life-saver. “Stop trying to, to, grab me,” he stumbles through the words.

Hoseok huffs. “I just don’t want you to fall down again.”

“Let me fall.”

Hoseok rubs his face with both hands, aggravated and trying his best to reign it in. “Fine,” he says from behind his palms, then drops his hands to his sides. “Fine, I will  _ let _ you fall. Can we  _ please _ go, now?”

Kihyun hesitates before remembering he doesn’t have any other option. He looks away, like he’s preoccupied with something, and nods.

Hoseok finally leads him up the stairs, where Kihyun follows at his own pace, hand gripping the rail to keep himself upright. He wonders, again, what this man plans to do with him. He doesn’t believe for a goddamn second that he has anything good to do with Hyungwon. He could easily have been a plant, relationship with Hyunwoo be damned.

Hoseok pauses at the top of the stairs and peeks around outside, probably checking to see if they’re being followed. At the entrance, it’s pitch black beyond the streetlights. It must be after midnight by now. Kihyun idly observes the metro adornments, the glowing red ’M’ and exit signs, the crumpled newspaper shreddings trapped in the corners. He wonders if it’s too late to crawl back onto the tracks when Hoseok moves on ahead and Kihyun follows suit. Emerging from the entrance exposes him to the bitter winter wind, and it’s all he can do to hug himself and try to stop the shaking. He can usually stand up to the cold, to endure it, but without his jacket the wind cuts right through his shirt and his sleeves. Crossing his arms over his body doesn’t help much, and the wind whipping at his face makes it hard to keep his eyes open, so he sacrifices an arm to shield himself from the elements and keep an eye on Hoseok.

Blessedly, Hoseok only needs to cross the street once and round the corner before he stops. He had been doing a good job of glancing over his shoulder to keep an eye on Kihyun until now, but at the last moment, Kihyun fell behind, slowly trailing towards where Hoseok stands by the curb. He looks terrible, face a swollen mess, smeared with blood and snot, trembling like a clothesline. Hoseok feels a sprig of guilt take root in his belly. When Kihyun is beside him, he pulls off his coat, swings it around his trembling frame, and pulls it up onto his shoulders. He can feel the resistance in the way his shoulders tense up, so he speaks before Kihyun can toss his jacket onto the ground.

“It’s only a little bit further,” he assures him. “Just wear this for a few more minutes and we’ll be home.”

Kihyun wants to hiss like a cat, but Hoseok’s body heat lingers in his jacket lining. It’s comforting, unfortunately, so he grumbles and lets it rest on his shoulders without shredding it to pieces. He’s really feeling the pissed off cat vibe right now. Hoseok looks disgruntled, but satisfied, and turns back down the street. When his back is turned, Kihyun lets himself slide his arms through the sleeves. It’s a little big on him, but it’s warm, and it’s better than nothing. He hopes Dayoung brings his coat back from the club.

Hoseok leads Kihyun across the street once more, sticking a bit closer this time, before stopping at a parking metre. Kihyun looks up.

Oh, no.

“Oh no,” he snaps. Hoseok fishes his key from his pocket, ignoring Kihyun while he approaches the neat, all-black motorcycle at the metre. He checks the time remaining before hoisting a leg over and sitting square on the seat. He looks at Kihyun for a brief second before pulling up his phone to double-check directions to Hyunwoo’s complex.

Hoseok says nothing. There’s nothing between them but wind. Kihyun tries again.

“D-don’t you have a real car?” he asks. Hoseok doesn’t answer, he just scoots up on his seat, still scrolling through his phone. Kihyun tucks his hands into his underarms and pushes his thumb against his bicep. “Sunbae, I’m not getting on that.”

Hoseok purses his lips, tapping away on his phone screen. “Would you like to walk?”

Oh, sarcasm. That’s exactly what he needs right now. Kihyun scowls at him, but doesn’t answer.

“I don’t have a car, I have  _ this _ . If you want to walk for an hour and a half, be my guest, but I’m not arguing with you any longer.”

Kihyun, indignant, crosses his arms tighter. He fights to keep his face steely against the bitter wind and maintain his glare, but, internally, is trying to stop himself from shaking.

“I don’t want to,” he says, voice a bit quieter than before, but before he can protest properly, he catches a familiar scent on the wind.

It immediately nauseates him, but in a familiar, almost comforting way. It brings to mind memories of the sea, cigarettes, and the scratchy fabric of his childhood mattress cover. He turns to look down the street, visibly frazzled, but sees no one. Across the street: no one. No one anywhere near them. It’s dark out; someone could be hidden in the shadows.

Hoseok watches him look around with some intrigue, but mostly with worry. He feels like he needs to sprint to catch up with Kihyun, sometimes. Like there’s always two degrees of separation between what Hoseok sees and what Kihyun experiences, and he needs to connect the dots himself. He shifts on his toes, glancing around to try and figure out what’s got him so skittish. They’re on an isolated stretch of road—too residential for any excited college kids to be out partying it up, but too early for anyone to be heading home. There’s no one around, but being attacked in the night would make anyone paranoid.

Hoseok watches Kihyun frown, then pat suspiciously at his jacket and pull the collar up to his face. Is he… Is he smelling it? Hoseok pulls his shirt collar up to his nose and sniffs. He’s not really that sweaty, but maybe he’s been neglecting to clean his jacket? He  _ has _ been wearing it a lot lately. Hosek wonders if he’s been parading around in smelly clothes and no one has bothered to tell him. But, Hyunwoo would tell him, wouldn’t he? Hyunwoo  _ knows _ how much he hates things like that, obliviously making mistakes without being corrected. Hyunwoo would tell him if he was getting kind of ripe. Then again, with all the paint and chemicals he’s constantly covered in…

Hoseok glances back up to Kihyun, who is staring disconcertingly back at him. His expression paired with his battered face makes him look really pitiful, like an abused dog snapping at a stranger. It’s starting to make him nervous. It’s starting to make sense.

“I’ll go slow,” he says, voice low. “It isn’t too far from here. It’ll take maybe fifteen minutes.”

Kihyun, for a brief moment, looks disgusted. But then his face twists up, like he’s dealing with something difficult, and he looks away. He opens his mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a visible puff of air out into the cold, a shocked, unsure exhale as he struggles internally. He turns his head toward his shoulder, mouth buried into the lining of the jacket’s collar.

“I don’t,” he starts, then his eyes shut and he looks even more conflicted.

Hoseok waits for another fifteen seconds before Kihyun manages to turn back to him. He looks completely resentful, even with his garish, damaged face. But he takes a hesitant step off the curb towards the bike and Hoseok feels relief flood his body.

He doesn’t wait for Kihyun to ask any questions, just instructs him to swing his leg over the side, helping him with his injured leg, and lets him sit comfortably (hopefully) on the seat. He waits until Kihyun is still, his legs bent oddly and his feet free-floating, before he turns and pats the passenger pegs behind him.

“Feet here,” he says. Kihyun tentatively lowers his feet down. “And watch the muffler. It’ll heat up after a while. You’re wearing long pants,” he continues, turning back to pick his keys from his keychain, “so you’ll probably be fine, but watch out.”

“Helmets?” Kihyun asks, trying to figure out which weird metal thing is the muffler.

“I’ll go slow,” Hoseok reassures him.

Kihyun doesn’t say anything, but Hoseok can feel him leaning back, like he can’t stand coming into physical contact with him. He wonders, again, if he’s in need of a shower.

“It’ll be,” he starts, then rethinks his sentence,  _ “safer _ if you put your hands on my waist.”

He can practically feel Kihyun bristling. Hoseok plugs the key in its ignition and starts the engine, and the man behind him startles and latches onto his back. It’s a little cute, or it would be, if Kihyun didn’t have a stubborn, impenetrable aura that made him want to make every situation as difficult as possible. Hoseok instructs him on how to handle turns, to lean with him and not against him, reminds him to watch out for the muffler again, and lets the two of them sit and idle for a few more seconds.

He braces himself on the handlebars, feeling Kihyun drag himself closer to match his lean. He’s really drunk, Hoseok can tell. And he’s already fallen asleep once, there’s no guarantee this ride will go smoothly. All Hoseok can do is push off down the street and hope they’ll make it through the night.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. Thanks to everyone for your ongoing support. This story means a lot to me, and I'm glad I'm able to put it out there.
> 
> No illustration for this chapter. It didn't really need one.
> 
> The next chapter will go up in two weeks from today. It is intentionally one, single section, and will be very short. I consider it the end of Part 1 of this whole story. I may take a short hiatus after that chapter, just to get my bearings and better prepare myself for Part 2, where Hoseok and Kihyun will finally interact. Thanks, again, for reading.


	6. 1 - Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags have been updated.

Fuck this. Fuck this, and fuck him.

The flu hit a little too hard this autumn, and Kihyun made the mistake of having lungs and a weak spot in his immune system. His mother spent two days chiding his poor eating habits and his nasty cough before day three hit and his entire body ached. Now his stomach is swimming, burning around one of his grandmother’s “Disease Destroying Tonics from Hell” while he stares at his ceiling and waits for the fever to break and his coherence to return.

Honestly,  _ fuck _ this.

He’s been fading in and out of consciousness for a few hours now, feeling increasingly more miserable and sweaty every time he wakes up and it’s a different time of day. At some point he gets up to use the bathroom and pretty much dies when he wobbles and nearly topples over into the bathtub with his dick out. The emotional and physical toil required to move his body out of the bathroom and into his bedroom is such that he passes out the second his face touches his pillow. And,  _ God, _ is it a good pillow. It’s like he can feel every single knot and gnarl in his body unravel. He sinks into his mattress, unspooling until he’s just a single string. Wasn’t his brother reading a comic like that, recently? Some crazy-looking girl unwinding into thread and fighting the police or something. He’s wondering if it’ll be just as easy to wind himself back up when he’s startled awake by someone sitting on the edge of his bed.

He immediately knows it’s his mother, here to pour more of grandmother’s toxic acid into his throat. He pretends to be asleep. She doesn’t say anything at first. But then, a tell-tale hand lands on his shoulder and shakes him gently. Nope, still asleep.

“You’re not awake, are you?” a voice that is explicitly  _ not _ his mother’s sighs.

Kihyun feels a spike of adrenaline push through his sickly haze, and he rolls over.

Hyungwon doesn’t look surprised, but still chuckles gently. “You little liar.”

“Hyung,” Kihyun’s voice rasps, and he holds out his arms. Lifting them is exhausting, but he finds borrowed strength when Hyungwon is around.

“You’re sick,” the older man snorts. He keeps his voice low; this is the first time he’s been in Kihyun’s house when his family is around. His mother is on the phone in the kitchen and his brother is studying in his room. There is no way to explain away an unknown adult man in his room. The situation becomes even more tricky when Hyungwon leans down, sidling into Kihyun’s arms and laying on top of him. They embrace with all the sentiment a delirious, besotted, sick teen and his time travelling lover on the run from the police possibly can.

Kihyun feels his heart pull, like a rubber band near its snapping point. He squeezes Hyungwon, pressing his mouth against his hyung’s shoulder. Even in all his hazy confusion, he cannot lie to himself. He knows what this is. He knows what this means.

“Please,” he sniffs. “Don’t go.”

“I just got here,” Hyungwon says. His voice is scratchy, but soothing, like sanding grain on cut wood. He thinks Hyungwon’s mouth fits so well around his voice, each of his words cushioned before impact, smooth and comforting and  _ familiar _ and  _ safe. _ Kihyun doesn’t think he’s ever going to love someone as much as he does Hyungwon, and he doesn’t want this feeling to vanish.

Hyungwon turns his head slightly, until his breaths are under Kihyun’s ear. “You know how much I care about you, right?”

“If you care about me, you’ll stay,” Kihyun tries.

Hyungwon doesn’t answer at first. He adjusts his position, slipping his arm under Kihyun’s back and scooping him up closer. Every point of contact hurts, but Kihyun endures.

“Are you any good at math?” Hyungwon asks.

Kihyun thinks for a moment. “What kind of math?”

“Aaaall of it?”

Kihyun laughs, once, but it hurts his stomach. “I’m pretty good.”

“Do you think you could get better?”

“Absolutely,” Kihyun doesn’t even hesitate.

Hyungwon inhales, like he’s about to break some bad news. “I’m leaving something for you.”

Kihyun turns his head towards Hyungwon. His forehead presses against his hyung’s chin. He’s still kind of in a daze, but he wonders if now would be a good time to make a move. Hyungwon is, allegedly, leaving him forever. A little flu shouldn’t ruin their last moment together.

Hyungwon continues. “It’s… a puzzle, kind of. It’s been encoded multiple times. All you have to do is solve it.”

“Why?”

Hyungwon hesitates. “I’m not exactly sure. But,” he moves his head back, tucking his chin in slightly, and meets Kihyun’s eyes. They’re so, so close. “But I know it’s important, and it’ll bring us back together.”

Kihyun clears his throat. “I’ll have it done in a week, then.”

Hyungwon laughs, smiling wide and keeping his voice low to avoid alerting the family. “I don’t think it’ll be that easy for you.”

“How long, then?”

Hyungwon stays quiet, staring idly at Kihyun’s mouth. He bites the corner of his lip, thinking. “A long time.”

Kihyun clears his throat again, trying not to cough in his hyung’s face. “A month?”

Hyungwon shakes his head.

Kihyun’s eyebrows tilt up. “A… year?”

Hyungwon sighs, and meets Kihyun’s eyes. His gaze is intense, unreadable. He looks like a deer in headlights, but Kihyun is the one who feels frozen in his spot. “I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to promise me you’ll stick through this,” Hyungwon says. His voice is careful, as though he was tiptoeing through the woods at night. “Even when things get hard—”

“I promise.”

“Even if you need to take a break, or you think you need to step away, or you have to get help before you can continue.”

“I promise.”

“You won’t give up?”

“I won’t give up.”

“Kihyun,” Hyungwon adds, voice as careful as ever, “I’m not just talking about this piece of paper.”

Kihyun stares blankly upward, at an empty spot on his ceiling. His gaze drops to the side, his eyebrows pinching together. “I know,” he says. His voice is small, full of shame.

Hyungwon tilts his head, and it’s enough to grab Kihyun’s attention. Their eyes meet, and Kihyun isn’t strong enough to face the look in Hyungwon’s eyes, the slight smile on his face as he looks down at him with nothing but adoration, a look he’s never seen from anyone. “I want to see you again,” Hyungwon whispers, and Kihyun feels his nose burn. “I  _ need _ to see you again. I need you to find your way back to me.”

“I will,” Kihyun answers immediately. “I want to see you, too. I will.”

“Promise?”

Kihyun, mustering up all his strength, squeezes Hyungwon harder. It hurts, but he endures. “I promise.”

Hyungwon shuffles a bit and Kihyun’s heart pounds, thinking he’s going to leave. He wraps his arms around him tighter.

“Wait, not yet,” he begs, and Hyungwon stills.

“I’m just putting it on your dresser,” he says. Kihyun peeks out from under him and watches Hyungwon place a folded piece of paper on his bedside table. He squints to try and see it better, but no dice. Hyungwon returns to his position, sloppily sprawled on top of Kihyun. The contact with his skin hurts, his entire surface sore and raw, but the pressure on his core is soothing. He splays his hands out across Hyungwon’s lower back, pulling him in for a sincere embrace. Hyungwon hooks an arm under Kihyun’s shoulders, pulling him up into a hug while he lays on top of him. He tucks his head against Kihyun’s temple, bringing the boy to rest into the crook of his neck.

Physically, it’s not necessarily the closest they’ve been. But it feels closer. Kihyun strains to feel Hyungwon’s heart beat in his chest, his eyes fluttering shut and his breathing slowing down. One of Hyungwon’s hands gets to work carding through Kihyun’s hair.

Kihyun whines. “Don’t go,” he pleads, muffled into Hyungwon’s collar.

“Am I going?” Hyungwon asks. His voice is like warm milk, with sugar mixed into it.

“Don’t leave me.”

“Am I leaving?” Hyungwon presses a kiss to Kihyun’s temple. It doesn’t hurt. “I’m right here.”

Kihyun whimpers again, desperate to fight back, to beg his hyung to stay besides him, or to bring him along. But the pressure and the massaging on his scalp both lull him into a cocoon of comfort, and he feels himself unravelling, fallen to pieces, with only the sensation of a familiar weight, Hyungwon anchoring him to the world. The Proustian feel of his skin; of the worn fabric at the hem of his shirt; of the scent of his skin and his hair; and of where they all mingle right behind his ear and against the crook of his neck all fill Kihyun’s senses.

“Hyung,” he’s whining again. “Please, don’t leave me here alone.”

Hyungwon’s hand keeps stroking his hair. “You won’t be alone.”

Kihyun sniffs, finding it harder to hide his tears. “I need you with me. I don’t, I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

Hyungwon turns his head and kisses his temple again, keeping his lips pressed to the skin in a way that makes Kihyun’s head spin. “Incredible things,” he whispers. “You’re going to do incredible things without me.”

Kihyun wants to fight that. He wants to deny fate the chance to take this man from him, to freeze time indefinitely and lie in this bliss forever, but he can’t even humour his fantasy in his dreams, and finds himself startling awake, his room dark.

The weight is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there!
> 
> Thanks for your ongoing interest in this story. This short chapter here was the last chapter of Part 1. Part 2 will resume normally, in the next chapter. Before that, though, I'm going on a short hiatus. I want to refine the style I use to illustrate this a bit (I want to keep things simple but focus on colour more; the images here today are close to what I'm leaning towards) and get a bit ahead on my editing. Part 2 is fully written, but I did a few major rewrites with some scenes I felt were a little unnecessary. I guess that's what happens when you're not the same person you were a year ago. ^^'
> 
> I'm not certain how much time off I'll be taking from posting. Hopefully it won't be more than a month. If anything happens unexpectedly, I'll talk about it over [here](http://www.twitter.com/clarkesuke).
> 
>  **Update, 9.20.19:** Hi there. Coming back to this story is taking a while. Editing and drawing have slowed down a lot for me because of my new job, which I love, but which is physically exhausting. I'm sorry for the radio silence. As this story is almost completely written, I have no intention of abandoning it any time soon. I just need some time to get used to all this hard work I'm doing. (I have one of those weak, fragile bodies you hear about in period dramas and old romance novels and shakespeare plays.) Actually, I'm working on a short side story for the Christmas season, just because it's less taxing to write, and it's much easier to ease myself into a small project than to force myself back into this long project. Thanks for your patience, and for reading so far. I'm still doing stuff over on my twitter account, and making progress updates when I can. See you all again soon. :)


End file.
